


The Road Less Traveled

by Cobrilee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anal Fingering, And Stiles/OMCs, Angst with a Happy Ending, Barebacking, Blowjobs, Bottom Derek Hale/Top Stiles Stilinski, But they don't mean anything, Claudia Stilinski Memories, Explicit Sexual Content, Hale Family Feels, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, M/M, Mentions of Derek/OCs, Misunderstandings, Nothing physical happens, Please don't let that scare you away, Rimming, Road Trip, Spanking, Star Wars References, Top Derek Hale/Bottom Stiles Stilinski, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:23:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 41,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7088845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cobrilee/pseuds/Cobrilee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thought is, the soul mark is ambiguous so people feel like they have a choice in who they fall in love with. Stiles thinks it’s to torture him. Derek thinks it means nothing.</p><p>Then they meet each other, and realize they’re both wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Happy Accident

**Author's Note:**

> This story was born after reading all these amazing, fantastic Sterek Soulmates AUs and wanting to be able to write one of my own. It took months after I initially found the trope to come up with my own idea, but I started working on this back in November. Now I've written twelve of the fourteen chapters and I feel comfortable starting to post it, because it's not likely to be abandoned before I finish it. :P Updates will be twice a week, on Saturdays and Wednesdays. Happy reading!

It was almost like it was happening in slow-motion. Stiles could see the moment the feet tripped over the loose stone in the path-he'd been telling Finstock for months that they needed to get that damn thing fixed because someone was going to get seriously injured someday-and his eyes flew up instinctively to the coffee cup that was held a little too loosely, apparently. He could almost make out all the letters on the cup as it came flying at him, the lid popping off and a spray of dark brown liquid arcing the short distance between them to splatter all over his old maroon Beacon Hills High t-shirt.

"Oh my God." The voice, presumably belonging to the owner of the coffee that he was now wearing, was horrified. "I'm so, so sorry."

Stiles brushed at the coffee droplets covering the printed letters, grateful the material was slick and he was able to flick most of it away. The spaces in-between the letters, however, were soaked brown. He was ready to make a smart-ass remark when he glanced up and saw the worried face belonging to the owner of the coffee.

He was inhumanly beautiful, and Stiles was lost.

"Uh, don't worry about it," he mumbled, stumbling over his words. "I'm no stranger to coffee stains all over my clothes. Although I'm pretty sure this is the first time that it's actually someone else's fault."

Then the stranger laughed, lips pulling back in an incredible smile that revealed bright white, adorably imperfect teeth, and he went from being inhumanly beautiful to otherworldly. Angelic. Perfect.

"Still, I'd feel better if I made it up to you somehow." The grin was blinding, and Stiles stared at him in stupefied disbelief for a few moments before he realized he was probably expected to say something.

"I can't think of anything," he said stupidly. "I mean, _you're_ the one who lost your coffee."

The gorgeous creature in front of him looked at him shyly. "I definitely need a new one before my Econ class or I'll end up asleep and drooling all over my notes on price theory. Could I get you a cup, too?"

Stiles blinked. He was pretty sure he was hallucinating, because at no point in his life would that perfect of a male specimen ever be interested in spending more time with him than he would otherwise have to. "Uh, sure. Sure," he repeated, mortification creeping in when he realized he was probably looking (and sounding) somewhat like a stoned half-wit. He shifted his book from his right hand to his left and stuck the now-free hand out to shake the stranger's. "I'm Stiles Stilinski."

To his credit, the other man didn't give him a funny look or make the expected joke about his parents' cruelty upon hearing the unusual name. He didn't even ask if it was a nickname the way many people did, often with a look that begged him to say yes. That automatically earned him ten points in Stiles' book. "Derek." The stranger-Derek-gave him a kind of wistful smile that sparked Stiles' curiosity, but then he was returning Stiles' handshake firmly. "Derek Hale."

He stilled, a chill racing up his spine and the back of his neck. The initials tattooed just below his hip bone, his soul mark, seemed to flame against his skin, almost throbbing. It wasn't the first time he'd met someone with the initials DH, of course, but it was the first time he'd had such a powerful reaction to the person. His desire to actually get to know Derek prevented him from being blunt and asking which initials were tattooed on the other man's body. He didn't want to know that they weren't his own.

If Derek noticed Stiles' odd reaction, he was too polite to mention it. Stiles fell into step with the other man as they headed back in the direction Derek had just come from and Stiles had been going to begin with, toward the campus coffee shop. "So you're in Econ, huh?" Stiles asked, trying to come up with a conversation starter. "You with Coach Finstock?"

Derek made a face. "Yeah. I don't know how that man hasn't given himself a heart attack yet."

Laughing, Stiles nodded in agreement. "Scott and I were convinced he'd have a coronary before the end of our senior year."

"Scott?" Derek's voice was both hesitant and slightly hopeful, and Stiles looked at him oddly.

"Yeah, my best friend. We went to high school in Beacon Hills together, and Coach was our Econ teacher there. We started college last year and apparently the man is a glutton for punishment, because he accepted a position teaching Econ here the same semester we started." A bright grin lit up his face. "Either that or we're his favorite students ever and he just couldn't bear to let us go."

Derek returned the grin. "I could see you being his favorite."

Scoffing, Stiles opened his mouth to reply, then ducked behind Derek to avoid the kid that came barreling onto the path in front of him. The kid snatched a rogue Frisbee out of the air and then ran back onto the grass toward his friends, and Stiles resumed his place beside Derek. "You clearly don't know me very well," he responded finally. "The reason Scott and I expected him to have heart issues was because of us. Specifically me."

Derek was quiet for a moment and Stiles chanced turning his head slightly in order to get a glimpse of his expression. He appeared deep in thought, as if he was warring with himself. Eventually one side seemed to win, because Derek glanced over at him and smiled hesitantly. "You're right, I don't know you very well. But maybe we can change that?"

"Sounds good to me," Stiles said agreeably, his heart thumping double-time. This absolutely wasn't happening. He was going to cry if his initials weren't branded somewhere on Derek's body. "So, how long have you been going here?" he asked, striving for casual and not altogether succeeding. "I know I didn't see you around campus last year."

Derek shrugged one shoulder. "I transferred from UC-Sacramento this semester," he replied. "I want to go here for my Master's degree when I finish my undergrad."

"Which is when…?" Stiles prompted.

Derek flashed him another one of his heart-stopping grins. "At the end of the year. I'm a senior."

Stiles sighed mournfully. "I'm just a lowly sophomore," he began, his voice pathetically sad, and Derek chuckled. "Although you wouldn't know it from my course load," he added with a grumble. "I'm taking all junior-senior level courses. My idiot advisor talked me into double majoring. I've decided I'm breaking up with her."

Laughing, Derek shook his head. "And here I am in entry-level Econ," he joked, pushing open the door of the coffee shop and holding it open for Stiles. "You must think I'm pretty stupid."

Stiles cocked his head appraisingly, then grinned. "I only think you're stupid because you're taking it with Coach."

"In my defense, I don't have four years of history with him," Derek protested. "I had no idea what I was setting myself up for when I picked his section."

Stiles threw his arm around Derek's shoulders without even thinking. "Stick with me, young Padawan. I will teach you the ways of UC-Berkeley. The teachers to avoid, the dorms with the best parties, and the who's who of the student directory."

Derek turned his head just enough to look down at Stiles, a shy grin lighting his face. "I already know the most important person here, everyone else is just going to be second best."

Stiles tamped down on the butterflies racing around in his stomach like they were on methamphetamine. _Don't get your hopes up_ , he cautioned himself. _You have no idea what initials are branded on his skin. He's probably not even meant for you._ Instead of acknowledging Derek's compliment, Stiles scanned the menu board as if he didn't already know exactly what he was going to ask for.

"Welcome to Bean Scene, what can I get for you?" the redhead approaching from behind the counter asked them, blowing out a breath and ruffling the wisps of hair that had fallen to frame her face. She leaned into the counter, bored, and clearly didn't give a rat's ass what they wanted.

Stiles glanced down from the menu board and broke into a huge smile. "Lydia, my love, when did you start working here?" he asked in delight. "As a matter of fact, when did you start working, period?"

She made a face at him and he could see Derek glance between the two of them bemusedly, evidently trying to figure out how they knew each other. "My mom told me she wasn't paying for my credit card this year. She wants me to work to pay it off. It's horrible, Stiles. I was _not_ made for the working world."

"Don't worry too much," Stiles assured her. "You'll find some rich moron you can ensnare in your black widow's web and suck him dry, and then you can quit your job."

She perked up. "Do you really think so?" He nodded. "Aww, you're so sweet. Just for that, your drink is on the house."

Stiles nudged Derek with his elbow. "Guess you'll have to owe me another time."

Derek nodded, pretending seriousness. "I think I can work with that."

Lydia flicked a glance between the two of them. "Is this your newest victim?" she asked sweetly, and Stiles glared in response.

"Derek Hale," Derek supplied, nodding in acknowledgment, and Lydia's eyebrows shot into her hairline as she turned to Stiles with an open mouth.

"His initials," she began, and Stiles waved her off.

"Yeah, yeah. Just get me a double espresso, okay? I have Molecular Neurobiology in a half hour and I'm going to crash hard if I don't have something to get me wired up first."

He caught the dumbfounded expression on Derek's face and winced, waiting for the inevitable comment. Instead, Derek addressed Lydia without taking his eyes off Stiles. "I'll have the same."

Lydia smirked. "Stiles can mainline espresso for days and still be his version of normal. I'm worried what it would do to you, though. You don't strike me as the type to substitute caffeine for oxygen."

"I have Econ with Coach in an hour myself," he replied, and she sighed.

"Understood." Turning slightly, she snagged two cups and scrawled on them, then shoved them at the freshman who had the bad luck of being her on-duty barista, glaring at him to make him move faster.

"Don't I owe you money?" Derek asked, amused, and she sniffed disdainfully.

"I get two free drinks per shift and I don't drink coffee. This is me being generous. Take advantage of it." The barista tentatively set down the two cups in front of her and she pushed them at Stiles carefully. "You two go enjoy your liquid evil. And Stiles? We need to talk later." The look she gave him told him she would not tolerate him trying to avoid her, and he sighed and nodded.

Derek followed Stiles to a pair of low-backed armchairs in the back corner. Stiles dropped his book on the small round table in front of the chairs and plopped down in his, leaning back and inhaling the coffee appreciatively. Derek eased into his seat and glanced over at Lydia before refocusing on Stiles. "She's a little intense."

Stiles chuckled. "That's part of her charm. She's a porcupine on the outside, and a… little less prickly porcupine on the inside."

Derek looked down at his coffee, pretending to examine it, and Stiles waited for him to spit out what he was obviously thinking. "So were you two ever a, uh, thing?"

"Well, I was in love with her from third grade through junior year," Stiles admitted, and Derek deflated a little, and oh God, Stiles was in _so much trouble_ with the way that evident disappointment sent his heart into fluttery overdrive. "But that was about the time I realized I didn't actually like girls romantically, or, y'know. Sexually. I stopped imagining happily-ever-after with her and she became my other best friend. We've pretty much been tighter than Beyonce's booty shorts ever since."

Derek snorted and choked on a sip of his espresso and Stiles had to reach over to whack at his back with one hand, his long, spidery fingers splayed out over the cloth of Derek's shirt, and he could feel the intense heat seeping into his palm. "Thanks," he wheezed when he could breathe again.

"No problem. I'd hate for you to choke and die during our first meeting." The thought, _And besides, if you're going to choke around me, it's not going to be on coffee_ , sprang to mind, and he desperately forced it down before it could find its way to his runaway tongue. "So what's your major?" he asked, rolling his own eyes at the boring, clichéd question, while simultaneously grateful he'd at least come up with something to change the topic.

He rubbed at the back of his neck, looking a little sheepish. "Civil Engineering. When I graduate I'll be going into City and Regional Planning."

Stiles blinked. "Impressive, dude. What inspired that?"

Derek's tight smile made it clear that it wasn't a subject he felt comfortable discussing. "It's expected of me. Carrying on the family tradition."

Gears were whirring in his head and all of a sudden something clicked. "Oh my God. Derek Hale. Talia Hale's son?"

The tight smile became brittle and looked as if would shatter if Derek put any more pressure behind it. "Yes."

Stiles nodded. "Cool. Um, just so you know, I aced all of Coach's Econ classes." He gave a tentative, lopsided grin. "If you need tutoring help, my nights off are Wednesdays and Thursdays."

Beautifully long, thick lashes blinked at him in suspicion and disbelief. "I admit I'm Talia Hale's son and you tell me you're available for tutoring?"

Shrugging, Stiles kicked back another swallow of espresso, feeling the caffeine start to buzz in his blood. "If you wanted to talk about your family you would. You obviously don't. Ergo, change of subject."

Amusement played at the corners of his lips. "Ergo, huh?"

"It's a lofty word. I'm a lofty kind of dude." He grinned cheekily, a thrill blooming in his chest at Derek's hearty laugh. "I _really_ hate to do this, but I have fifteen minutes until class starts and it's a ten minute walk across campus." He leaned forward, snagging Derek's cup and carrying it to the counter so he could grab a pen. When he walked back over to where Derek was still sitting and watching him with a fond smirk, he presented the cup, which now bore his phone number. "If you're interested in tutoring. Or just hanging out."

Derek took the cup, studying it for a moment. "Is there anything else in that offer?" His eyes stayed on the cup, not brave enough to meet Stiles', and Stiles swallowed. He hated this part. He didn't want to waste his time with someone he didn't have a future with, but he didn't want to have the soulmates talk with someone he barely knew. It was awkward. Not for the first time, he resented the ambiguity of the soul mark. You sort of knew, but you didn't really, not right away.

"There's a conversation we'll need to have before I can give you an answer to that," he replied carefully, and Derek's face fell, almost imperceptibly, but Stiles was watching him closely and he caught it. "Let's start with friends, okay? I like you. I want to spend more time with you. Whether it's of a romantic nature or not… We can figure that out later."

Derek smiled ruefully. "I can live with that," he allowed. He reached out for Stiles' cup while reaching a hand into his backpack and pulling out a Sharpie. After he'd scrawled his number on it and returned the cup, he made a shooing motion with his hands. "Don't be late for class. I'll talk to you later." He flashed a warm grin at Stiles before leaning down to pull his Econ text out of his backpack, seemingly easily dismissing Stiles.

His confidence was the sort that confounded Stiles. He'd been direct and open from the moment they met, but his obvious shyness had popped up unexpectedly, leaving Stiles to wonder if he was of the "fake it 'til you make it" school of thought. Either that or he was the kind of guy who'd spent his entire life being told he was amazing and gaining confidence because of it, but underneath it all he wondered if he really was everything he was made out to be.

Considering his mother's family had pretty much created the town of Beacon Hills from the ground up, the second option was probably a safe bet. Talia Hale was third-generation mayor of Stiles' hometown, and he imagined that if Laura wasn't the eldest Hale child, Derek would have been fourth generation. He might still, if the rumors about Laura wanting to go into fashion were true.

Stiles still couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that the kid that he'd last seen when he was a skinny, awkward ten-year-old with so much hair you could hardly see his eyes through it all, was now quite literally the most gorgeous man he'd ever met in his life. He still remembered the picture of Derek with his family in the local paper, about two weeks before they shipped him back off to Sacramento where he lived with his Uncle Peter. Derek had been standing there sullenly and peering out from underneath his mop of uncontrollable hair that Talia had clearly tried, and failed, to tame. Even at the tender age of seven, Stiles had pitied the kid because he was so homely.

Twelve years later Stiles was laughing at himself for how wrong he'd been, and marveling at how kind the years had been to Derek. He had totally Longbottomed, and damn if _that_ didn't bring other, dirtier, images to mind.

As he made his way across campus, sliding into his seat in his Neurobiology class with seconds to spare, he found himself fervently hoping for about the dozenth time in the last hour that when he and Derek finally had that soul mark talk, he would discover that his initials were somewhere on Derek's body. And they would live happily ever after.


	2. Life-changing

**Derek: I'm so ready to take you up on that tutoring offer.**

**Stiles: Fun with Economics not so fun?**

**Derek: I'm pulling my hair out right now. I may be bald the next time you see me.**

**Stiles: God no, don't do that. It would be a sin to destroy that gorgeous hair. Put the Econ book away, I'll be there tomorrow to make it all better.**

**Stiles: Where is there, exactly?**

Derek let out a half-laugh, able to admit to himself that he was thrilled at how easy and comfortable the banter between he and Stiles already was. It was strange, in a way. Things were never this easy for him, and while he'd met many people in his life, both those who bore the initials that were emblazoned on his skin and those who didn't, he'd never had a reaction like this to any of them.

It killed him that Stiles wasn't his soulmate.

He'd never wanted it to be someone this badly. The moment Stiles had looked up at him and their eyes connected Derek had just _known_ ; he knew _this_ person was the one he was supposed to be with. And then Stiles had introduced himself and that precious certainty, so intense and so fleeting, slipped away.

No sooner had he finished texting Stiles his address, adding that his last class of the day was over by noon, than his phone was ringing. "Hi, Laura," he answered, biting back a heavy sigh. He loved his sister, he did, but all she would want to know was if he'd met his soulmate by now. Apparently just being in a new place was all it was supposed to take. Never mind that the first semester was only into its second week and he'd hardly had a chance to meet anyone yet.

Except Stiles. And he absolutely, one-hundred-percent didn't want Laura to scent out his reaction to the charming, funny, sexy-as-hell, scarily-smart sophomore. She would lecture him on the futility of falling so instantly and completely for someone who would never be his.

"Hey, baby bro," she returned easily, and he settled into what was sure to be a daunting conversation. "How's your second week going?"

"Good," he replied cautiously. "My econ class is going to kill me, but I made a friend who's taken every one of this prof's classes and aced them, so he's going to help tutor me."

"Oh?" He could hear her voice perk up and swallowed a sigh. "What's this 'he''s name?"

"Stiles," he answered, voice short. Of course his family all knew he was bi, and they also knew the initials on the nape of his neck. When he'd kept his hair super-short everyone had been able to see them; it was one of the reasons he'd grown his hair out long enough to cover them up, although he couldn't stand letting it get much longer than that. "Stiles Stilinski."

He could hear her deflate even before the flat-sounding, "Oh," came out of her mouth. "Well, that doesn't mean you won't find him around campus. Maybe this Stiles will introduce you or something."

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. "Laura," he warned, and she breezed past the topic without missing a beat.

"I got an A on my swimsuit today," she announced, as if she hadn't been pressing the one thing Derek hated most for what felt like the millionth time. "My mentor thought it was amazing with all the mesh cutouts and the way they revealed some skin in a flattering, classy way."

"That's great, Laur," he responded automatically, and while he meant it, he winced as he heard the robotic tone of his voice. Laura was sure to catch it as well.

She did. "What?" she asked, suspicion creeping through her voice. "You're barely even listening to me, Der-Bear. I know fashion isn't your thing, but you usually at least talk to me when I tell you about one of my projects." She paused for a moment and Derek fell back against his headboard, waiting in resignation for her to go for the jugular. "You met someone, didn't you?"

"It never ceases to amaze me how you can read me like a book even when you can't see my face," Derek muttered, frustrated.

"YOU MET SOMEONE!" she shrieked excitedly, and Derek flinched away from the burst of noise. "Who? What are their initials?"

He debated whether to be honest or not, knowing that it ultimately didn't matter because she'd figure it out eventually anyway, and his silence went on long enough that it answered for him. "The tutor," she realized, sighing in exasperation. "Derek, you know better." Her tone was sympathetic and it was almost worse than the excitement. "Don't get too invested, okay? You know it's only going to hurt you. If he hasn't found his soulmate already, he will, and you don't want to be the one caught in the crossfire when he does."

The bitterness seeped into her voice and Derek felt a flash of sympathy. Laura had fallen head-over-heels in love with her best friend's older brother, only to be discarded when he met his soulmate. It had eventually cost her the best friend, too. "I know, Laura," he admitted quietly. "I'll keep my distance. I'm not stupid."

"That's debatable," she grumbled, sighing. "Please don't go and get your heart broken, okay? I can't bring you Ben and Jerry's from New York."

A surge of affection flooded him and he was reminded of how much he loved his sister, and more importantly, _why._ "If I get my heart broken, I'll eat a pint with you on Skype," he promised solemnly, and she laughed.

A knock sounded at his door and he frowned. He had a single-room apartment, no roommate, and there was no reason for anyone to show up at his place unannounced. Or at all, really. It was probably just someone looking for a friend and getting the wrong apartment. "Hey Laur, I gotta go, I have a half-dozen econ essay questions to get through before Friday, and apparently I also have to redirect some lost freshman."

"Don't scare them into peeing on your doorstep," Laura teased him, and he made a face at the phone.

"I'm not scary," he grumbled.

Laura laughed musically. "Between your eyebrows and the fact that you and Grumpy Cat might as well be twins, you terrify the hell out of anyone who doesn't already know you," she countered. "But I'll let you go. Talk to you later, Der-Bear."

Derek was already opening the door and his mind went blank when he saw Stiles standing on the other side, grinning and holding up a white paper bag of what smelled like tacos. He barely registered Laura saying goodbye and he shoved his phone in his pocket, blinking. "Stiles. What are you doing here?"

"I had the feeling that you didn't listen when I told you to put your econ book away and wait until tomorrow," he replied easily, letting himself in as if he'd done it a thousand times already. "So I brought food and my Netflix password, on the off chance you don't have an account of your own, and I'm here to rescue you from brain-numbing homework."

"I have Netflix," Derek replied dumbly, and Stiles smirked.

"Do you have tacos?" Derek shook his head. "Alright then. I'm useful after all." He plopped down on Derek's couch and glanced around approvingly. "Nice place."

Derek settled gingerly on the edge of the couch, on the opposite side from Stiles. "I pay for it myself," he explained, feeling the need to defend himself.

Stiles raised an eyebrow at him in amusement. "I didn't ask, because I don't care. Don't feel like you have to prove to me that you're not some spoiled rich boy. Because again, with the not caring."

He flushed, knowing he'd brought attention to the one thing he always tried to keep hidden. Somehow, Stiles had brought it out of him before he even realized he was talking about it. "I hate it when people know about my family," he admitted, his voice low. "Everyone either wants to buddy up to me because I'm rich, or they think I'm useless and get by on my family's money."

"I'm not everyone," Stiles said, his tone on the edge of sharp, and Derek immediately recognized that Stiles wouldn't ever take kindly to being lumped into a group. The tension was fleeting, however, and before Derek could even open his mouth Stiles already had his remote in hand, thumbing through Derek's Netflix list. "You've won my respect," he announced approvingly. "Although I have to take away ten points for the presence of Friends here."

Derek scoffed. "My tastes can't be entirely limited to 'cult' hits that really everyone on the planet knows and loves," he protested, referring to the fact that Firefly and Buffy were in his "most recently watched" queue. "Sometimes I like things that are just brainlessly funny."

Stiles ignored him. "Okay, so at least you have Studio 60," he conceded, starting up the first episode. "It's one of Matthew Perry's better roles, because Chandler of course doesn't count. It's criminal that this show only lasted one season."

"Especially considering West Wing lasted seven," Derek agreed as he headed into the kitchen, dragging some plates out of a cupboard. "Maybe people just got tired of Aaron Sorkin's style."

Stiles raised an eyebrow when Derek brought the plates into the living room. "Wait, aren't those supposed to be made of paper?"

"Please tell me you grew up in a home where proper plates were used," Derek remarked, raising an eyebrow right back at him.

He shrugged as he reached for the bag of tacos and started pulling them out, placing them on the plates. When Stiles stuck his thumb in his mouth to absently-mindedly suck the salt off of it, Derek could feel both his throat and his pants tightening and he had to swallow back a groan. It was almost frightening how bad he had it for someone he knew wasn't meant to be his. "Yeah, sure, but my parents were adults and stuff. They had a house and real furniture and paid bills and shit. We're still college students, we get to live in the land of paper plates for a little longer."

Derek debated for a second before admitting, "I usually eat off the paper ones, but I thought real plates would be nice for company."

Scoffing, Stiles stuffed one of the tacos in his mouth. "I'm not company," he explained around a mouthful of meat and cheese, and Derek was a little disturbed that it didn't make him want Stiles any less. "I'm your friend. I'm going to be here a lot. Don't waste the good plates on me."

He could feel the uptick in his heart rate at Stiles' assertion that he'd be at Derek's place a lot. "I'll keep that in mind for tomorrow," he replied lightly, taking a seat far enough away that Stiles wouldn't think he was being crowded, but close enough that they could touch, if they were so inclined.

Stiles grinned around the half-chewed food. "Don't think I'm buying tomorrow, too. I'm poor. You've got money out the ass, you can afford to cater the study sesh."

"I thought you didn't like me for my money," Derek challenged him, and Stiles shrugged.

"I can't carry this relationship on all fronts," he replied easily, wolfing down another bite. "This is one area you can. Pony up the pizza, dude."

 _Relationship._ The word tugged at Derek, making him swallow hard as he looked askance at Stiles. "So, uh, you think this is a-."

"Shut up, Hale. I'm trying to watch Bradley Whitford," Stiles interrupted, but after a moment of silence he returned the glance. "We haven't talked about the soulmates thing yet, and we kind of need to before we decide where this is going. Just not tonight, okay? Tonight is for relaxing and hanging out and watching good TV and eating some, quite frankly, amazing tacos." He kept his gaze steady on Derek, pleading with his eyes to just let it go for now.

Derek nodded, sinking back into the couch. He could handle that. Something told him Stiles was worth waiting for.


	3. Re-set

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you know how on a roller coaster, there's that climb to the top, the breathless moment where you're on top of the world, and then there's that terrifying, stomach-clenching drop? Yeah... I may have forgotten to mention it, but last chapter was that moment at the top. Buckle in, kiddos. (Remember: we'll get to the happy ending. Breathe deep, power through.)

Except they didn't talk about it. They spent weeks together, hanging out and flirting and studying and playing video games and falling into what most people would consider an actual relationship, but they both held back. Derek didn't seem to mind whether they talked about it or not, but Stiles _couldn't_ talk about it. The more time they spent together the more he realized he was head-over-heels crazy about Derek, and the more terrified he became that when he finally did broach the Topic, he would find out Derek had someone else's initials on his body. He wasn't sure he could handle that.

So he just kept pushing it away. They'd talk about it tomorrow. Or next week. Or never.

"Hey," Derek greeted him, not even glancing up when Stiles let himself in. "The game's almost over."

Stiles dropped onto the couch, kicking off his shoes and putting his feet up on the table. Derek gave him a dirty look out of habit, but didn't say anything as he returned his attention to the TV. It wasn't the Mets-Stiles thought it looked like the Cardinals-so he only half-watched the game. The other half was spent watching Derek's face, which was rarely so animated as when he was watching baseball. His eyes shone, darting back and forth as they followed the play on-screen, his mouth tightening in anticipation, and then a brilliant grin accompanied by a shout of joy. He slammed his palms on his thighs, turning to Stiles in victory, and Stiles softened as he studied the face of the man he had come to care for beyond what he'd ever felt for anyone. He wasn't ready to call it love, it was too soon for that, but he expected to get there before the end of the month. The realization terrified him.

"We need to talk about the soulmates thing," he blurted out, and he flinched when Derek's beatific smile dropped off his face like a body into the Hudson. "I just, I can't do this anymore without knowing."

"Knowing?" Derek's voice was quiet, his eyes solemn and sad, and Stiles knew, he _knew_ this wasn't going to end happily.

"If we're soulmates." He held his breath, feeling like his lungs were going to burst until Derek gave him a wistful smile.

He looked down at his hands, seeming to struggle with the words he was about to say, and Stiles wanted desperately to keep him from saying them. He'd asked for this, he'd thought it was what he needed, but more than anything he just wanted to go back to that time a minute ago when there was still hope. "We're not."

He'd known, but the words sliced through his gut with the precision and fire of a razor-sharp blade anyway. "We're not," he echoed, feeling as hollow as the words sounded. "Have you met your soulmate?" _Stupid question, Stilinski. If he had, he wouldn't have spent the last few weeks with you._

Derek shook his head. "I've met a few people with the right initials," he admitted, "but they weren't the One."

"Same here." Stiles let out a slow, faltering breath. "I guess that's it, then."

Panic flared on Derek's face and Stiles couldn't breathe. "What, you're going to leave because I'm not your soulmate?"

Stiles's eyes widened as he realized Derek thought he'd meant he was going to cut the older man out of his life. "No!" he rushed to assure him. "I mean, I still want to be your friend. I want you in my life for as long as you'll have me. But the romance thing… We can't."

Derek stared at him stubbornly. "You really put that much stock in it?" he argued. "You don't think it's worth exploring a relationship with someone just because they don't have the right letters tattooed on their body?"

"What's the point?" he asked, voice low and pained. "We get together. We spend a few months, or worse, a few years together, completely happy. Then one of us finds our soulmate, and the other gets their heart shattered."

"Or, we spend a few months, or a few years together, and we're _completely happy_ ," Derek retorted. "Maybe neither one of us ever finds our soulmate. Maybe our soulmates are platonic. People have been arguing for years that the soul mark is too inconclusive to plan your whole life around. It's more of a guide than a great big flashing neon sign."

Stiles heaved in a troubled breath. "Derek, I like you a lot. But I'm not willing to run the risk of you destroying me on the off chance you _won't_ walk away." Running a hand through his hair, he collapsed back against the couch. His mind raced and he finally glanced over at Derek, debating whether to voice his thoughts. "We could try the friends with benefits thing," he offered, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

Derek was shaking his head before the words even left Stiles' mouth. "No," he said flatly. "I don't want part of you, Stiles. I want all or nothing."

They both stood when it became clear they were at an impasse. "I meant it when I said I'm not leaving because of this," Stiles insisted, even as he headed for the door, followed closely by Derek. "I feel closer to you after less than a month than I have with most people in years. I'm not giving that up." His mouth snapped shut and his eyes widened. "Unless, of course, you think we should. I won't push you to be friends if it's going to be too hard on you."

Derek shook his head, sighing. "No. I'd rather have you as my friend than not have you in my life at all." Stiles opened his mouth, puzzled, but Derek cut him off. "It's different than sleeping with you when I want to _be_ with you. I'm not going to sell myself out just to be able to touch you."

Stiles nodded, swallowing past a large lump in his throat. "Then this is it. We re-set. Tomorrow when I come over, we're just friends, nothing else. We both know now it can never be romantic."

Derek stood stiffly, his expression uncertain, and something twisted in Stiles' chest. "We re-set," he repeated, throat aching. "Tomorrow. Tonight, we can still have this." He slid into Derek's space, crushing their chests together as he twined his arms around Derek's neck. His arms came up automatically and encircled Stiles' waist, pulling him in as tightly as he could, and Stiles was lifting up on his toes, fusing his mouth to Derek's with a desperation equally matched by the older man.

It wasn't a gentle kiss, full of longing and tenderness. It was passion, it was pain, it was heat and fire and _need_. They clung to each other, lips moving frantically over the other's, tongues licking and sliding and curling and stroking. They poured every ounce of desire and _want_ and heartbreak into those few moments, kissing until they were breathless, until they were oxygen-deprived, and Stiles started to get light-headed and woozy and had to break away to keep from collapsing at Derek's feet like a bad actress in a black-and-white movie.

He dropped his forehead to Derek's chest, feeling those large, strong hands roaming comfortingly over his back. Tears sprang to his eyes and he had to swallow hard several times to keep from giving in to the need to cry right there. He had his pride. He'd wait until he got home and then he'd kick his roommate out and bawl his eyes out with the covers over his head. Right here, he'd keep it together. Somehow.

"So, friends?" he croaked, trying to paste a crooked smile on his face, and succeeding only in grimacing.

A hooded look cast itself over Derek's eyes. "Friends," he echoed, voice empty. His mouth twisted into a hollow approximation of a smile.

Stiles couldn't help it; he reached up and pressed another hasty, desperate kiss to Derek's closed lips and slipped out the door, closing it behind him with a sharp, hard tug. He had to collect himself for a moment as he stood in the hallway, shaking, and knew that whatever they had just said, they would never be just friends. But they had to try.

He wasn't sure how he made it back to his dorm without breaking down, but somehow he was spilling into the door of his room, noting distractedly that his roommate, Eli, wasn't around. It helped him to feel less pathetic when he face-planted on his bed, burying his face in the pillow and finally letting the flood of tears loose. He felt like a fucking idiot, having allowed himself to all but fall in love with Derek without ever having known what his soulmate initials were. He'd just been so damn _certain_. Everyone always said when they met their soulmate they just _knew_ ; seeing the initials was simply a confirmation of what their hearts had already told them. He'd honestly thought… but apparently he'd been wrong. Surprise, surprise.

Sometime later-could have been minutes, could have been a week, since Stiles was so out of it he didn't have the slightest clue how much time had passed-his phone rang. Against his better judgment, he clawed at his pocket for his phone, hoping that Derek had realized he'd somehow been misreading the initials inked on his own skin for twenty-two years. When he saw Lydia's name on the screen, the disappointment was crushing.

"Yeah," he answered listlessly, staring up at his ceiling with unseeing eyes.

"Wow, that's the cheeriest I think I've ever heard you," Lydia remarked, tone as dry as the wine she preferred. "What happened, did Derek find a new friend to play with?"

Stiles flinched, the words landing too close to the truth. "Not exactly," he mumbled. "We're still friends. _Just_ friends. I'm not his soulmate, Lyds."

"Oh, sweetie." The pained sympathy in her voice grated on his nerves. "I'm sorry. I know how much you love him."

"I don't," he protested automatically. "I haven't known him long enough to love him."

"Bullshit," she scoffed. "You've loved him since the first time you met him. You might be able to fool _him_ , you could probably even fool Scott, but don't even act like you'll be able to fool me."

Stiles groaned. "I hate the fucking soul mark," he groused. "Why can't it be clearer? Why can't we just have our damn soulmate's name tattooed on us instead of their initials? How does this help anyone?"

"Stiles, you know better," Lydia reminded him. "People would rebel against the idea of the soulmate if they felt like another person was being forced on them. The ambiguity makes people feel like they have a say, some control over their own lives."

"Fuck control," he muttered, sighing. "Jesus, Lyds, why does this have to suck so hard?"

"Alright, enough of this," she interjected tartly. "I'll be over in ten minutes with a bottle of tequila. We're going to get you so drunk off your ass that tomorrow you'll be too busy hating yourself to worry about how shitty you feel about Derek."

"Deal," Stiles agreed with another sigh. "I love you, Lyds, you're the best."

Lydia snorted delicately. "Duh. If only you still liked women, I could rescue you from all this."

It was a joke they'd used many times, when one or the other had suffered a romantic disappointment, and the familiarity of it was comforting now. "Wouldn't help, you still have the wrong initials." He glanced at his watch. "Hurry up, I need to not be thinking about this anymore."

"Leaving now. Hang on, Stiles. I'll be there soon to help you drink your misery away."

She ended the call and Stiles flopped his arm on his bed, the phone bouncing out of his hand and onto the floor. Lydia had the best of intentions, but he had the feeling that drinking himself stupid wasn't going to make him forget.

Derek's face popped into his mind, brilliant smile turning broken and Technicolor eyes fading to gray, taunting him, and Stiles whimpered. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world to erase the memory of how much it had killed him to kiss Derek and then walk away.


	4. Moving On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned it was going to get worse before it gets better, right?

It took almost two weeks, but there finally came a point where they were _almost_ -sort of-back to normal. Those were two very awkward and painful weeks, but Derek was, ultimately, grateful that Stiles had insisted they "get right back on the horse". He'd declared that if they avoided each other so that it wasn't awkward, they'd keep on avoiding each other and eventually it would be normal for them not to be in each others' lives anymore, and he refused to let that happen. So even though it hurt, and neither of them really knew what to say to each other, he still continued to show up with food, to do homework, to watch cheesy movies, until they settled back into their old routine.

Then Stiles had to go and fuck it all up again.

"Sooooo…." He looked at Derek out of the corner of his eye and Derek sighed. He already knew this wasn't going to be good. "So, we, um, we haven't talked about…" Derek shot him a plaintive stare, clearly telling him to hurry the fuck up, and Stiles swallowed. "Dating."

The thought rattled him. He hadn't consciously thought about it, but unconsciously he'd recognized there was no real reason for him to consider dating. He knew who he wanted. He couldn't have him. The end. "Dating?" he repeated cautiously.

Stiles shrugged, his shoulder jerking as he looked away, unable or unwilling to look Derek in the eye. "It's going to happen eventually. Have to get back into the swing of things, right?" His voice trembled, anxiety shining in his eyes when they swung back to Derek.

"When is 'eventually'?" Derek asked carefully.

His eyes darted around, landing over Derek's head and beyond his shoulder and flickering away altogether before coming back, and Derek's stomach felt sour. "I, um, have a date. Tomorrow."

Derek blinked at him, acid swirling through his stomach and rising into his throat. He could taste it on the back of his tongue and wondered idly if he was going to actually throw up. "Who?"

Stiles shifted uncomfortably, mumbling, "This guy in my Policing and Society class."

"Oh."

They stared at each other, Derek blank-faced and Stiles so agitated he almost looked like he was going to burst out of his skin. "Is that all you have to say?"

"What else am I supposed to say?" _No, you can't. You're mine. Why the fuck are you dating someone else when you know it should be us?_ "We're not soulmates. I can't hold you back from trying to find yours." _Please don't. Forget about the fucking soul mark and soulmates and all that bullshit. You're mine and I'm yours and that should be it. Why isn't that good enough?_

Stiles exhaled, his breathing hitching. "Well, good. That's good. This is healthy." He paused again and the tension spiked. "So, are you going to date, too?"

"Of course," Derek found his mouth saying, without his permission.

"Ah. Really?" Stiles' eyebrows were arched, shocked.

"Why shouldn't I?" he challenged, knowing he was only being difficult; he didn't want to date, so why should he care if Stiles expected he'd be sitting at home alone?

Stiles sagged back into the couch. "No reason," he replied weakly, running his hand over his hair, ruffling up the long-ish dark brown strands. "You should tell me your soul mark initials," he suggested hesitantly. "So that if I run into someone with them, I could-."

"No." The sharp, immediate response brooked no argument. "I'm not putting that on you. I don't want you to feel like you have to introduce me to anyone you meet with the right initials. If one of them were to be my soulmate, you'd always remember you were the one who introduced us. I don't want you to have that burden."

"That's… thoughtful," Stiles admitted. "But I don't mind. I want you to be happy."

 _Then stop worrying about the goddamn soul mark and whether we are or aren't each other's soulmates, and choose to be happy_ with _me. "_ Are we going to watch the movie or not?" Derek asked instead, voice rough and raspy, and Stiles swallowed again, and dirty thoughts raced through his head before he could stop them. He almost begged Stiles to stop swallowing-to stop doing anything with his mouth, to be honest.

"Yeah, fire it up," he muttered, the almost-lighthearted mood from earlier completely shattered.

The atmosphere was tense and heavy through the whole movie; Derek and Stiles sat next to each other, but both were stiff, facing forward and not looking at the other, and very careful to stay far enough apart that there was no risk of accidental touching. When it was over, Stiles yawned in an overexaggerated way and stretched his arms over his head. His shirt rode up, exposing a slight glimpse of a dark line of hair dipping into the waistband of his jeans, and Derek had to avert his eyes.

"I'm exhausted, and I have to be up early for my Restorative Justice class," he mumbled, stooping to snag the strap of his backpack. They'd planned on studying after the movie, but Stiles clearly wanted to cut the evening short. Derek was in full agreement with that course of action. "I'll see you later?" Not "tomorrow", or even "this weekend". Open-ended. Derek was helpless to stop the widening gulf between them.

"Sure," he replied, nodding casually, or at least attempting it. He could feel his head jerking and imagined he actually looked like a wooden puppet. "You mind if I email you my econ essay tomorrow for review? I have to turn it in Friday."

"Yeah, no problem." Derek remained on the couch, watching him unhappily as he headed for the door. When he got there, hand on the doorknob, Stiles cast Derek a determined look. "I know this sucks. Trust me, I know it. But we're never going to get over this if we don't make an effort to. I have to make the effort, Derek. My best chance at not getting my heart broken is not getting emotionally involved until I find my soulmate. I've had my heart broken and I don't want to go through that again. Maybe you're okay with a little bit of happiness followed by devastation, but I'm not."

Derek stared after him as the door shut slowly behind him, reached over and pulled out his laptop, and opened the Skype icon.

"Der-Bear!" Laura's smiling face beamed out at him, only to be replaced immediately by a look of concern. "What's wrong, baby brother?"

He couldn't speak for a minute; he opened his mouth, but the words didn't come out. "I hate this," he finally croaked out, and she sighed deeply.

"Hang on a minute." She got up, and Derek was treated to the sight of her ratty dark brown fur couch, a throwback to the eighties, while he heard sounds of her rattling around in the kitchen. When she came back, there was a pint of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food in her hand. Derek could see some black letters on the lid.

"What's that?" he asked, only half-curious, and she tilted the lid so he could read it better. "For Derek's Broken Heart. Thanks, Laur." He snorted out a half-laugh, half-choked breath. "How long have you been saving that one?"

"Since the night after the conversation in which you admitted you fell for your Economics tutor," she answered breezily, sinking back into the couch. "So spill. What happened that it's finally time to break out the ice cream? And where's yours, by the by?"

Derek got up, digging around in his freezer for his pint of Karamel Sutra and fishing a spoon out of the silverware drawer, before dropping back onto his own couch. "We're trying to be friends," he started.

She snorted. "Good luck with that."

"Yeah, it's not going so well," he agreed, scowling. "It was going okay, we were finally getting better. Then today he brought up dating other people, said we need to figure out how to move on."

"Aww, Derek. What a fucking idiot."

"He's right," Derek conceded, the words scraping his throat raw with the truth of them. "We're not soulmates. Stiles doesn't want to settle for someone who isn't his soulmate, no matter how he feels about them, because he believes it's just setting himself up for getting his heart broken. I can't tell him he's wrong. I have to accept this is what he wants and needs."

"What about what _you_ want and need?" she challenged him, sticking a spoonful of chocolate ice cream, fudge fish, and caramel and marshmallow in her mouth. He could see her mouth working and then her throat as she chewed and swallowed. "You deserve to be happy. If this Stiles kid can make you happy, you should prove to him that he's wrong."

Derek stared at her in confusion. "Aren't you the one who told me not to mess with someone who isn't my soulmate?" he objected. "You said it would only end badly for me."

Laura shrugged. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe eventually getting hurt is worth being happy with him in the meantime. Who's to say? I'm certainly not an expert."

Derek slapped at his chest in feigned shock. "I think the world may be ending."

"Ha, ha." She shot him a withering glare. "I'm just saying. I don't want you spending your life not trying for the things you want because I think you'll get hurt. You have to do things for yourself and not for other people."

Derek shoved his own spoonful of pure caramel into his mouth and sucked on the spoon thoughtfully. "Maybe I _should_ start dating," he said suddenly, and Laura cocked her head, her eyebrows drawing together as she watched him suspiciously.

"Not that I don't think that's a good idea, but what brought this on?"

He grinned. "Maybe Stiles will have a change of heart if he sees me living my life like I'm not waiting for him to decide to be a part of it."

She frowned in warning. "I don't think that's a good idea, Der-Bear," she chided gently. "You should date because you want to, not to make Stiles jealous." She considered the idea further. "Maybe you'll actually meet your soulmate in the process, though, and then it will all work out after all."

Derek shook his head adamantly. "I won't date anyone with my soul mark initials," he declared. "I don't want to find my soulmate. I don't want to find anyone else."

"Derek." She stared at him, the Older Sister Glare of Doom working its magic even through Skype. "I really think you should reconsider this before you dive headfirst into it."

He pretended to think about it. "I will," he promised, but it was an empty one and they both knew it, and Laura sighed.

"I love you, so you know I'll support whatever hare-brained scheme you come up with," she groused, her tone in direct contrast to her words. "Just don't make me end up with a freezer full of ice cream, okay? I'm a broke college student in New York City and this shit is like seven dollars a pint here."

"Ouch." Derek winced. "No more ice cream."

"I'll just keep one in reserve."

He grinned. "It'll be fine, Laur, I promise. I love you."

"Yeah, yeah. Love you too, baby brother."

She blew him a kiss and he signed off, picking up his phone and scrolling through the numbers before he found the one he wanted and hit the little message icon next to it.

**Hey, it's Derek, from your Energy Systems and Control class. What are you doing Friday night?**


	5. The Pact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's obvious to everyone that the issue is Derek doesn't know Stiles' real first name, and people are getting frustrated that it's such an obvious fix and these two dumb boys aren't communicating. I get that frustration, totally. But if you think about it from the perspective that this is teaching them to grow and strengthen their relationship and learn how to fight for each other even when they think it's pointless, that they'll never get to have each other the way they want, isn't it kind of beautiful? They refuse to give up on each other. Think about that when you're getting frustrated, because I can tell you, this is only chapter five and they don't figure it out until the chapters hit double digits. Happy reading! :)

Stiles hated that Derek was dating. _Hated_ it. In a weird way, though, it made him feel better. He'd wondered if he would feel like the world's biggest ass to be dating while Derek holed up in his apartment all alone; he'd learned that, despite initial appearances, Derek was more of a loner and didn't really encourage friendships or spending time with anyone else.

The first time he'd met Scott (and, quite honestly, every time thereafter), he'd bristled and gotten really quiet. Stiles had tried to facilitate easy communication between his two best friends, but Derek was monosyllabic and Scott had written him off as a jerk before ten minutes had passed. It had frustrated him at first, but now he mostly just rolled his eyes at their "top dog" posturing with each other whenever they had to tolerate the other's presence.

Now that Derek had, apparently, become a social butterfly, Stiles didn't see him as often. He'd managed to convince himself that _that_ was the reason Derek's dating bothered him so much, not that he was out there potentially finding his soulmate. After all, that was what _he_ was doing, how could he begrudge it of his best friend?

Until he found out Derek was only dating people who _didn't_ have his soul mark initials.

"What the fuck, Derek?" he grumbled one night when Derek was describing how his date with Alyssa Neville had been a bust. Three nights earlier he'd gone out with a guy named Kellen Bartlett, and the weekend before that it had been a girl named Elodie Rivera. No rhyme or reason to the initials, to the genders. He just seemed to go out with anyone and everyone. "Are you just trying to be the biggest manwhore possible?"

"Aren't you the one who's all about sensitivity and not shaming people for their sexuality?" Derek replied mildly. "Calling me a manwhore isn't very sensitive."

Stiles glared at him. "You know what I mean. You're not even trying to find your soulmate, are you?"

Derek smirked. "Not even a little bit," he confirmed. "Not all of us are so hellbent on skipping every possible relationship in the search for our One and Only," he added darkly, eyebrows drawing together in a brooding stare that he focused downward into his coffee cup.

"How can you still possibly be holding that against me?" Stiles fumed, throwing his hands up in the air and waving them around in frustration. "Most people _want_ to find their soulmate!"

"But most of them aren't so dead-set on it that they refuse to give anyone else a chance!" Derek shot back, and Stiles expelled an annoyed breath.

"Can we not do this right now? We're actually friends again and every time this comes up, we get pissed off and circle each other and sulk and we waste another couple weeks we could be hanging out and having fun," he grumbled, and Derek rolled his eyes.

"Sure, Stiles. That's going to work perfectly."

"You're a jackass sometimes, you know that?" Stiles snapped, and Derek unexpectedly shot him a brilliant smile that actually didn't look forced at all, and Stiles couldn't help it, he started laughing. It just served to remind him that even though it was hard sometimes-and boy, was it _really_ hard sometimes-he wanted Derek in his life. He was an awesome friend, and Stiles wasn't willing to give that up. Even though quite frequently he fantasized about them being the kind of friends who made out a lot and had sex.

Derek's smile faded into something a little more natural and Derek-like, and Stiles breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He knew it was just as much his fault as it was Derek's, but he hated it when their mutual interest was brought up because it constantly made him wonder if he was doing the right thing. It was inevitable that a relationship with Derek would end in heartbreak, and Stiles was terrified it would be his. On the flip side, he was sick at the thought that it would be Derek's; he never wanted to cause his friend that much pain. Even if he _was_ the one who found his soulmate first, doing that to Derek would crush him despite whatever happiness he might gain.

It didn't mean he didn't wonder sometimes if it might be worth it. It certainly wasn't doing him any good to scout out any guys with the initials DH he could find and ask them out, most of whom were _not_ gay, or even bi. He'd met a handful who were interested enough to say yes, though, and he'd parted ways with all of them after anywhere from one to three dates, once they got to the point where they were comfortable divulging the initials inked on their skin. They were all nice enough, though a couple were boring as fuck, but despite that he hadn't felt a keen desire to keep them around regardless of the soul male incompatibility, not the way he had with Derek.

They fell into silence as they got back to their homework, which had been interrupted when Stiles made the mistake of asking Derek about his most recent date, in an effort to prove he could be a supportive friend. Clearly that hadn't worked out well for them, so Stiles continued to research his Neurobiology paper while Derek fought with the design program he was using to build a model for his Transportation and Land Use Planning class. After about the third time Derek swore at his laptop under his breath, Stiles glanced up, eyebrows quirked in amusement.

"Do you need help over there?"

Derek scowled at the computer, shoving it away from him. "You can take this program and blow it up for all I care. 'User friendly' my ass."

"Your ass is too glorious to be compared to that program," he murmured unthinkingly as he came around to peer over Derek's shoulder at the screen. Derek stiffened and Stiles felt the change in temperature. "What?"

"You can't _say_ shit like that," Derek gritted out. His shoulders were tense almost to the point of shaking and Stiles felt horrible. Derek continued to rail out. "You want to know why I've been dating anyone I can get to go out with me? Because I can't stand watching you date your way around half the frats on campus and feel like I'm watching my life go by in the same breath."

He shoved away from his desk and stalked his way toward the kitchen. Stiles started to take a step in his direction but he whirled around and glared. "You're dating to find your soulmate. I get that. I'm dating because I _don't_ want to find my soulmate. Ever."

Stiles blinked at him, feeling like he was watching a foreign movie without subtitles through, like, a fish tank. It made no sense and it gave him a headache. "How can you not ever want to find your soulmate?" he protested.

"Because soulmates are bullshit," he snapped. "Who we fall in love with is our choice, and the initials don't mean a damn thing."

"You can't seriously believe that."

"I can, actually." He wilted, turning away and blowing out a harsh breath. "I've known a lot of people who loved someone who wasn't their 'soulmate'. They didn't need some mystical mark to tell them who to fall in love with."

"Did it last?" Stiles' voice was quiet and it silenced Derek.

It took him a moment to answer. "No. But that doesn't invalidate how happy they were while they were together."

"That's the thing, Derek," Stiles countered with a heavy sigh. "I know we could be happy. I would love the hell out of you, and we'd be one of those disgustingly perfect couples. And when it ended, it would destroy me. I'm pretty sure it would destroy you. I don't want that for either of us. Do you?"

Derek opened his mouth and then immediately snapped it shut, staring at Stiles with his lips pressed together in a thin line, and Stiles knew his point had been made. "I don't know if we can keep doing this," he said finally, and Stiles bit his lip.

"I don't know, either," he replied honestly. "Isn't it worth trying, though?"

"Of course it is," Derek muttered in frustration. "But how long do we _keep_ trying when we're not succeeding?"

Stiles thought for a few moments, rolling possible options around in his mind. "Let's make a pact not to bring our thing up for two weeks," he finally decided. "Not once. We don't snipe at each other about it or make sarcastic comments about the other's dates. We act like actual friends who aren't interested in each other."

Derek shrugged. "It's as good a plan as any," he conceded. He gave Stiles a half-smile. "Now that that's settled, think you could help me with this fucking program? I'm about to go _Office Space_ on my laptop."

Stiles returned the smile tentatively. "Your pop culture references warm my cold, dead heart," he remarked, and made a mental tally mark when Derek didn't comment about how warm Stiles' heart was for _him_. It gave him sudden hope that they'd be able to stick to their pact, and eventually it would become easier until they really were "just friends".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I have been seriously remiss in mentioning it, thank you all a ridiculous amount for the love and praise you've showered on this. I love this story so much and I'm so happy that it's resonating with my readers as well. :)


	6. Shift in Balance

The first week of their pact was hard on both of them, but harder on Derek, at least as far as he could tell. He was dating more than Stiles because Stiles was limited to finding guys who bore his soulmate initials, while Derek had a much deeper pool of candidates to swim in. But they both knew that Derek's dates would never mean anything, would never be serious, while Stiles went into every one of his with the hope that this guy would be his soulmate. They never were, which Derek silently rejoiced in at the same time Stiles lamented each new "failure".

Derek had to fight himself to keep his mouth shut when Stiles bitched to him that his most recent date, Drew, had been a plastic Ken doll who was both racist and elitist. Stiles had fumed when the sweater-vest-wearing prepster condescended to their limping waitress, making snide remarks that her feet probably hurt because she was more used to making money on her back. She'd stiffened when she overheard the unnecessarily cruel and likely completely inaccurate comment, and Stiles had sought her out to hand her a fifty-dollar bill and his apologies before ditching the asshole.

"I know not every guy in the world is a nice one, but Jesus, Der. This guy was just a total douchebag from the word go and he acted so smug and high-and-mighty and like his money and his parents entitled him to treat everyone else like shit. How do people like that even still exist in this day and age?" he ranted, flinging himself back on Derek's couch and dropping his feet into Derek's lap while throwing his arm over his eyes, blocking out the bright overhead lights.

"What I can't figure out is why you went on a date with him to begin with," Derek countered, frowning. "If he's such a dick, why did you even consider him?"

Stiles shrugged awkwardly, his shoulder pressed into the deep gray microfiber. "One of the guys I went out with a couple weeks ago, Devin, belongs to the same frat as Drew. He mentioned me to Drew and showed him my picture, and he called and asked me out. I didn't spend much time talking to him, but I guess this just tells me I'm going to have to pre-screen any future potential soulmates," he grumbled.

"Have you considered your soulmate might be female?" he suggested carefully, and Stiles made a face.

"God, I hope not," he said with a shudder. "A platonic soulmate? That would be the definition of shitty."

Actually, Derek liked that idea just fine. If Stiles had a platonic soulmate, he'd be free to seek out someone else romantically.

Stiles waved the idea away, his lip still curled as if he'd taken a big whiff of sour milk. "What about you, have you had any good dates this week?" he asked, smile bright but strained at the corners.

"Nothing as dramatic as yours," he replied wryly, "but I met this girl named Brielle and we played mini golf a couple nights ago. She seemed really sweet. We're going to a play on Saturday."

"A second date?" Stiles' eyebrows catapulted into his hairline as he sat up in shock. "Oh my God, you're actually getting serious!"

Rolling his eyes good-naturedly, Derek pushed Stiles' feet off his thighs and reached over to smack him across the back of the head. "It's a second date, idiot. Don't start planning the wedding just yet."

Stiles shook his head, the excitement growing, though it was tinged with sadness. "Derek, you've been on, like, twenty dates in the past month. Not one of them has been a second date."

Annoyance twisted his features. "She's a nice girl, I like her, and she doesn't act like she wants anything from me. She just wants to go out and do stuff and have someone with her while she does. I don't think she's looking for anything serious, which is perfect because neither am I."

It was skirting the line of their pact and they both knew it, since they both also knew the only reason Derek wasn't looking for something serious was because he'd already found it.

Stiles cleared his throat; the attempt to distract them both was obvious, but Derek was suddenly so exhausted with fighting everything between them that he allowed Stiles to gloss over the unspoken challenge without saying anything. "I'm glad you have someone besides me to hang out with," he replied lightly. "I was beginning to wonder if I was your only friend."

"Oh, is that what you call yourself?" he snorted, trying to bring some levity to ease the awkward tension. "I thought you were mostly just a barnacle made of sarcasm that I can't seem to rid myself of."

"You're an asshole," Stiles pouted.

Derek snorted. "No shit, Stiles. You've known me for too long now to be surprised by that."

"I liked you so much better the way you were the first day we met," he groused good-naturedly. "You were sweet and charming and nice and treated me like I was this amazing creature you were blessed to be able to share breathing space with."

He burst into disbelieving laughter as he launched a pillow at Stiles' head. "You liked the idea of being hero-worshipped," he scoffed. "If I hadn't gotten comfortable with you enough to be myself, you would have become bored with me after a week."

"Probably," Stiles conceded. He wrinkled his nose. "What does it say about me that I'd rather be antagonized by you than be bored?"

The desire to answer that question truthfully nearly overwhelmed Derek, so he very carefully side-stepped the words that rushed to his tongue. "It doesn't say anything about you," he lied. "It says something about me. Basically, I'm awesome." He flashed Stiles a sly grin and watched as he attempted to swallow his groan.

"Maybe," he muttered. "A little. Not much."

Derek beamed at him and returned to the book he'd been reading when Stiles came in earlier, bitching about his horrendous date. Stiles poked at it with his foot, nearly knocking it loose from Derek's grip. "What are you reading?" Derek held the book up so Stiles could see the cover and he made a face. "Renewable and Efficient Electric Power Systems? What the actual fuck, Derek? How are you not comatose reading this shit?"

He didn't answer. The truth was, he hated his degree program. He wasn't interested in "this shit" in the least and he had no desire to take over the "family business," but with Laura staunchly refusing to fall in line and instead forging her own way into the world of fashion, Derek had never really felt like he had a choice. He wasn't the rebellious type, and his parents-okay, his mother-had been so disappointed when Laura applied to the Parsons School in New York City that he couldn't bring himself to follow her lead, though he desperately wanted to. Honestly, though, he'd never known what he might want to do if he had the opportunity, because he'd always known that opportunity would never exist.

Stiles recognized that his question was more loaded than he realized, and with a sensitivity that Derek always seemed to forget he had because he rarely showed it, he backed off. "You must be thrilled this is your last year."

It wasn't a much easier question, but Derek appreciated that Stiles was making an effort. "I have my Master's ahead of me," he reminded Stiles wryly. "I can't imagine it's going to be much better."

"Fuck," Stiles muttered, throwing his hands up in an "I give up" gesture. "I'm just going to keep my mouth shut now."

"That would be a damn miracle," Derek teased him, and Stiles wordlessly conceded the point with a sheepish grin.

Derek's phone chose that moment to chime, and Stiles pounced on it before Derek could even reach for it. "CORA!" Stiles yelled happily as he clicked to open the video call that was coming through. It took a few moments for both pictures to settle into an actual image instead of blurry, pixellated glitching, but when it did, Derek saw his baby sister's glaring face on-screen. Joy.

"What's wrong now?" he asked with a sigh, and Cora growled.

"Mom and Dad won't let me come visit you next week," she all but snarled.

"Why do you want to come visit?" Derek questioned, eyebrows drawing together in a puzzled frown. "I'm coming home for Thanksgiving." He caught sight of Stiles' face in the small picture in the lower right side of the screen, turning to stare at him in dismay. He wondered why that would upset Stiles, but pushed it away to think about later.

Cora scowled. "I need to get the hell out of this house. Mom and Dad are smothering me. They'd try smothering Nate if he let them, but he spends ninety-seven percent of his day in his room when he's not in school, and the other three percent he's only out to eat or take a shit."

"Cora." His voice was gentle, but clearly reprimanding, and she rolled her eyes.

"God, Derek, like you're the only one who's allowed to cuss," she muttered, and Stiles muffled a snort of laughter. "Talk to him, Stiles, tell him he has to let me come visit."

"Derek, you have to let her come visit," he parroted agreeably, and Derek twisted to glare at him, though it was mild. "I haven't met her yet! I want to meet all the Hale kinfolk."

Derek sighed. "You'll meet them all when I take you home for Thanksgiving." The words were out before he thought about them, and Cora squealed.

"Did you two finally get together?" she demanded. "Have you told Mom and Dad, Der? Do they know you're bringing your boyfriend home for the holidays?"

Derek and Stiles both froze, unwilling to look at each other, and they could see Cora frown as she tapped at her screen. "Damn it, this thing locked up again!" she whined, and Derek slowly thawed.

"No, it didn't," he said uncomfortably, and she glanced between the two of them, flushing when she realized her gaffe.

"Well, either way, you're welcome to stop by Casa de Hale," she said, somewhat awkwardly, and Stiles tried his best to muster up a genuine smile.

"Wouldn't miss it," he insisted, voice a little too cheerful, smile a little too bright. "But maybe you shouldn't push the idea of visiting right now. Midterms are next week and we're going to spend the next five days cramming our brains full so we can regurgitate them all over our scantrons and blue books. At that point it's only two weeks until Thanksgiving."

Cora heaved a grumpy sigh, but nodded. "Damn it, I hate when you make sense," she grumbled. "I'll see you in a few weeks, then, Der. You too, Stiles."

"Talk to you soon, Cor," Derek said mechanically, watching as she stabbed at her phone and the screen went black.

Stiles exhaled. "That wasn't awkward or anything," he muttered, and Derek stared helplessly at him before he remembered.

"Pact."

It took him a moment, but Stiles finally blinked when realization came. "So I'm going to meet the famed Hale family over Thanksgiving break, huh?" It wasn't a smooth transition, but it was something, and Derek was grateful enough to latch onto it.

He shrugged stiffly. "Your dad is still in Beacon Hills. I figured you'd go home for the holidays yourself, and if we'd both be in town, it would only make sense for you to come over and say hi to everyone. My sisters love you and are dying to meet you."

"The feeling is mutual," Stiles said jovially, but it was forced, and Derek sighed.

"Stiles."

The man in question cut him off before he could say another word. "You know what, Derek? Let's not. This week has been tough, but it's proving that we can get there. We just have to give it more time. Okay?" Derek nodded reluctantly and Stiles slapped his hands on his thighs as if to signify that was the conclusion to the conversation. "I have to get back to my dorm and break out my Policing and Society syllabus and basically memorize everything that's on it. That midterm is going to kill me."

The name sounded familiar, until Derek remembered that was the class Stiles shared with the first guy he'd mentioned going out with. David, if he recalled correctly, and damn it did he hate that he remembered all of the guys Stiles had gone out with in the last month and a half or however long it had been. To Derek, it felt like a decade had passed.

"Text me when you get home," he said automatically. It was Derek being a little overprotective, maybe, but he'd said the same thing every time Stiles left his apartment since the first time he'd shown up with tacos. He wanted to know that Stiles had gotten home okay.

Instead of teasing him about it as he always did, Stiles' expression softened into a fond smile. "Will do," he promised, and he lay a hand over Derek's shoulder and squeezed for a brief moment before heading for the door.

Fifteen minutes passed slowly before Derek's phone pinged. **Home and safe** , it read, as always, and Derek exhaled. Stiles was certain they'd get to a place of ease, eventually; Derek was just as certain that "easy" would always elude them.


	7. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! There is a character in this chapter who most people will hate. I'm sorry, but IMO he was an important addition because he leads to a couple very significant moments between Stiles and Derek. There's no physical stuff and the character will never appear after this chapter (although he's mentioned in chapter eight). Just bear with me and things will get better. :)

It was exactly three hours after his last mid-term, when Stiles was sprawled over his favorite couch at Bean Scene and lazily poking at Lydia while she scowled at him from behind the counter, that he met Donovan Holbrook. Donovan was relatively attractive. He had dark hair (it wasn't as dark as Derek's), and green eyes (they weren't as kaleidoscopic as Derek's), and he was tall (he wasn't as tall as Derek), and he liked him. He smiled at Lydia and put a ten dollar bill in the tip jar, which elicited a nod of approval from Lydia and a glare at the barista to move faster. The girl behind him bumped into him as he accepted his cup of coffee, and when she apologized he gave her a gracious smile and told her not to worry about it, even though a few droplets had scattered across the thigh of his slacks.

In short, he was not the douchetastic asshole otherwise known as Drew Elliott Hessington III. Stiles immediately appreciated him.

When Donovan turned around he caught Stiles watching him with interest, made his way over without either hurrying or strolling in order to feign nonchalance, and nodded at the armchair across from Stiles' couch. "Anyone sitting here?"

"There is now," Stiles responded cheekily, knowing it was a lame line, but finally having the confidence to pull it off and make it sound charming instead. After Derek, as well as a handful of dating experiences over the past couple months, Stiles had stopped thinking of himself as that guy who didn't get the other guy. He smiled up at Donovan. "I'm Stiles."

"Donovan Holbrook." The return smile had nothing to do with that familiar trip of his heart, the stuttering that said, _Maybe this time is the last time. Maybe he's the one._

Stiles gestured at the chair and Donovan settled into it easily. They appraised each other silently for a few moments, and Stiles waited for the excitement to come. There was always anticipation, but there was also always excitement. The eagerness of meeting someone new and seeing where it might go. To Stiles' dismay, the excitement wasn't there. _Not yet_ , he consoled himself. _It's soon yet._

"I'd say 'Do you come here often,' but I think I've used up my quota of lame one-liners," Stiles observed dryly, and Donovan flashed him a brilliant smile (his teeth were too perfect, not like Derek's adorable bunny teeth).

"My answer would probably be boring, anyway," Donovan returned, still grinning. "I'm not a big fan of coffee, so this is literally the first time I've stepped foot in this place."

Stiles raised one eyebrow. "You don't like coffee, but you bought something at a coffee shop."

Donovan shrugged. "They sell more than coffee at coffee shops." He punctuated his statement with a very deliberate sip of his drink. "Chai tea."

"No wonder Lydia likes you," he snorted. "Chai is virtually the only thing she drinks."

"Lydia?" Donovan's eyebrows (too thin, not like Derek's monster brows) pulled together in confusion.

Stiles gestured at Lydia, who was rolling her eyes at the freshman stumbling over his order. "The scariest woman on the face of the planet, and one of my best friends."

Donovan laughed again, and Stiles felt himself warming up to him. Enough so that when Derek texted him a half hour later, signaling he was done with his finals, too, Stiles only shot him a brief response before putting his phone back in his pocket and refocusing his attention on Donovan.

To his surprise, he liked Donovan. He was nice, he was funny, he was relatively smart, he was inoffensive and genial and while Stiles hadn't felt any instantaneous sparks, he really enjoyed his company. He could be okay with Donovan as his soulmate.

So when Donovan leaned over at dinner the next night and his shirt shifted, revealing the black ink on his collar bone, Stiles didn't understand why his whole stomach twisted in panic at the sight of his initials emblazoned on his date's skin. It didn't make sense that the few bites he'd had of his dinner threatened to make a reappearance. Donovan's pleasant face blurred and his voice came to Stiles as if through a tunnel, and then everything went black.

When he reopened his eyes he was disoriented and queasy and grumpy, so when the first thing that came into his vision was Derek's worried face, he just chalked it up to his brain pretty much hating him. When Derek's mouth started moving and Stiles felt the strength of his hand on the back of his neck, realization slowly penetrated the fog and he blinked, wondering what the hell Derek was doing there when Stiles was on a date with Donovan.

As if his thoughts summoned the man in question, Donovan's face appeared over Derek's shoulder. "I called him because he was listed as your Berkeley emergency contact in your phone," Donovan explained in response to the questioning look Stiles shot him, the confusion on his face echoed in his voice. "Are you okay, Stiles?"

Stiles glanced back at Derek, whose fingers were still gently squeezing the back of his neck. "Yeah, I think so," he murmured, leaning slightly into Derek as the older man helped him sit up. "What the hell happened?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," Derek answered grimly. "Donovan said you passed out and slid out of your chair like you were drunk."

"Graceless as ever," Stiles groaned, rolling his eyes at himself. His stomach lurched and he groaned again, not protesting when Derek wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and purposely not acknowledging the way Donovan looked from Stiles to Derek in question. "I think I should probably go home."

"I can take you," Donovan offered, but Derek gave a sharp shake of his head.

"I've got him," he snapped, and Stiles hated the frown on Donovan's face. If this was going to work, he was going to have to lay down a list of rules with Derek. Of course Derek didn't know, he couldn't be blamed right now, but he would have to be told.

And Stiles couldn't think of anything he wanted to do less.

The ride back home was silent; Stiles lost in thought and blatantly avoiding the topic he knew he needed to address, sooner rather than later, while Derek was trying to be conscientious and giving him time to recover. Stiles blamed his rattled brain for not catching on to the fact that Derek wasn't taking him back to his dorm until they were actually pulling into the garage at Derek's apartment complex.

"This isn't home," he pointed out, feeling stupid at the obviousness of his observation.

Derek's lips twisted and pulled down in a scowl. "I don't know what the hell happened to you. You're staying with me so I can keep an eye on you until I know if you need a doctor."

"Der." Stiles sighed. "I know what happened."

"Then why the fuck didn't you tell me?" he grumbled. "I've been half-sick with worry since I got Donovan's call."

"Let's go inside first," Stiles suggested, not wanting to have this conversation in the front seat of Derek's Camaro. He didn't object when Derek came around to his side of the car and opened the door, helped ease him out of his seat, and slid an arm around his waist. He leaned in, letting his cheek press against Derek's shoulder even though it was awkward; Derek wasn't that much taller than him, so leaning down took some effort. It was worth it, though.

When they'd gotten into the apartment and Derek settled Stiles onto the couch, he disappeared into the kitchen and then reappeared with a glass of water and another frown. "What's going on?"

"I think Donovan is my soulmate," he blurted, cursing himself for his lack of tact or preparation when he saw Derek's face pale until he was virtually as white as a ghost. Or as white as Stiles imagined a ghost would look like; as he'd never seen one, he wouldn't know for sure. But Derek was a dead ringer for the white-sheet-covered version from children's cartoons. "I knew yesterday when we met that I had his initials on me. I found out tonight that he has mine on him. I think the unexpectedness of it freaked me out and that's why I reacted the way I did."

Derek swallowed and Stiles could see it hurt him. "So that's it," he said hollowly, and Stiles stared at him in confusion. "I imagine you'll be wanting to spend all your time with him now," he added morosely, and it clicked in Stiles' head.

"Derek, I swear to you that I'm not going to let my relationship with Donovan, if we end up having one, impact our friendship," Stiles promised him. "I don't know for sure. I mean, I don't have that _feeling_ about him. But I like him, and our initials match, and we're both gay, and it just makes sense. You're still one of my best friends, though, and I'm not going to abandon you whether he and I are soulmates or not." His voice was fierce, as if he was daring Derek to try contradicting him.

Despite his conviction, the smile Derek gave him was sad, wistful, and defeated all at once. "I know you believe that."

"Derek." Stiles grabbed his chin and forced their eyes to meet. "I will never let him come between us."

The impact of what he said wasn't lost on either of them. Stiles realized he had, in essence, told Derek that he was more important than Stiles' soulmate, whoever he was. That wasn't the way it was supposed to be, and the immediate understanding that it was true terrified Stiles even more than when he realized that Donovan was very likely his soulmate.

Which was why it hurt even more when, over the next couple weeks, he watched the distance between he and Derek grow as he spent more and more time with Donovan. It wasn't what he wanted, and his heart ached whenever a text to Derek would go unanswered, or he would show up at Derek's apartment and find that he was out on yet another date.

Worse, he knew he wasn't the only one who saw how miserable he was.

"Stiles." Donovan poked at him gently and he glanced up from the page he'd been trying to read for ten minutes. "You're in another world. What gives?"

"This stuff is boring as hell and I can't concentrate," he complained, exaggeratedly slamming his book shut and leaning over to kiss Donovan, but his boyfriend held a hand up, preventing him from making contact.

He sighed. "You really think I don't know what's going on?"

Stiles closed his eyes. "Can we not? Please? I don't want to talk about this."

Donovan laughed, though it was laced with bitterness. "Like I want to talk about the fact that my boyfriend is thinking about another guy."

"That's not it," he protested automatically. "Derek is my best friend and I promised him I wouldn't let our relationship turn me into one of those guys who ditches his friends, and yet I totally did. I'm the world's biggest asshole."

"You're not an asshole," Donovan contradicted, sliding an arm (it wasn't as muscled as Derek's) around his shoulders and squeezing gently. "You're a good guy who cares about people. Why do you think I'm with you?"

Stiles mustered up a small smile. "I thought it was because we might be soulmates," he offered, and Donovan smirked.

"Stiles, I'm pretty sure that if we have to ask if we're soulmates, we're probably not," he admitted wryly, and the statement hit Stiles like a punch to his solar plexus.

What if his inability to get over Derek was sabotaging everything? What if Donovan really was his soulmate, but Stiles' soul wasn't actually in it because he was so hung up on Derek?

What if he spent the rest of his life looking for the one thing he wanted most, doomed never to find it because it could never be better than what he already had?


	8. Mutually Assured Destruction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name of this chapter is its own warning. You will love me. And then you will hate me. Sorrynotsorry in advance.

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

Derek bolted upright on the couch, gaping at Stiles, who was glaring at him with wild, slightly red-rimmed eyes. His thick brown hair was spiked up in disarray, evidence that Stiles had been tunneling his fingers through it repeatedly, yanking at the spikes and tufts in frustration. His book fell from slack fingers, all but forgotten in the wake of Stiles' hurricane-like entrance.

"What the hell, Stiles?"

"I can't stop thinking about you," Stiles ranted, his liquid amber eyes flashing, and Derek's lips fell open in surprise as his heart started to race. "I can't stop wishing you were my soulmate. I can't stop thinking maybe it doesn't matter that you aren't, and I can't stop wondering if the inevitable heartbreak would be worth it. I can't stop, Derek, I can't stop _wanting_ you!"

His chest was heaving with his erratic breathing, and Derek started to rise to his feet when Stiles pinned him in place with another vicious glare. "You've ruined my whole life," he concluded, still breathing heavily, shoulders slumping as he came down from the emotional high generated by his tirade.

The accusation felt like a poison-tipped arrow slicing into his heart and spreading acid fire through his blood. "Do you hate me that much?" he asked, devastated, and Stiles threw himself on the chair in outrage.

"I don't hate you at all, Derek, don't you _get_ that?" he cried. "I _love_ you, and my boyfriend-correction, my _ex_ boyfriend- _knows_ it!"

Derek swore his heart stopped. It was melodramatic and over the top, but it wasn't something he ever thought he'd hear from Stiles and he felt like he was entitled to the moment of indulgence. "Ex boyfriend?" he parroted instead, choosing to focus on the less volatile-he thought-part of that declaration.

Stiles snorted bitterly. "Donovan called time of death on our relationship two hours ago. Said it was obvious we weren't soulmates and he wasn't interested in being my distraction from you anymore." His hands found their way into his hair again as he dropped his head into them, elbows digging into his knees. "It's always going to be like this, Derek. I don't have a prayer of being happy with anyone else as long as you're in my life."

"So, what?" Derek asked, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "This is it?"

Stiles glanced up, flinching when he saw what Derek figured was probably raw agony in his own eyes. "No, never," he murmured back. "I can't keep not doing this anymore."

"What do you mean?" he parried, confused, and the breath caught in his throat when the helplessness on Stiles' face shifted into something darker, predatory. His eyes were gleaming in determination as he rose from the chair and crossed to Derek purposefully. Derek swallowed hard when Stiles dropped into his lap, thighs trapped between the knees Stiles clenched around him. His heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest, and his cock out of his pants, when Stiles braced his hands on the back of the couch on either side of his shoulders and leaned in, licking at the hollow of his throat. "Jesus, Stiles, what are you doing?" he croaked, and Stiles pulled back with a smirk.

"What we've both wanted since the day we met," he breathed, dragging his teeth over the curve of Derek's neck where it met his shoulder. He shuddered as Stiles bit down, halfway between gentle and bruising, unable to think past the rush of blood from his brain to his cock.

When his senses caught up with his brain, however, he caught the scent of alcohol on Stiles' breath. He frowned and pushed Stiles away. "You're drunk," he accused, and Stiles rolled his eyes.

"I've had three beers," he grumbled, eyes dropping to stare avariciously at Derek's mouth. "I'm hardly to the point of not being able to consent."

"I don't want this, not like this," Derek protested, and Stiles sighed, leaning into Derek's personal space and curling up like a contented kitten.

"I want this any way I can get it," he countered, his voice a low rumble. "Maybe I wouldn't be saying or doing this if I was a hundred percent sober, that's true. But I'm glad I'm not, because we deserve this. We've suffered for a long damn time for it. Take it, Derek. I'm offering this to both of us."

Derek faltered, and Stiles seized on that moment of uncertainly. He tilted his hips and rocked forward, his erection rubbing firmly against Derek's aching, straining cock. His whiskey-colored eyes gleamed in determination, and Derek couldn't find it in him to fight it anymore. Plenty of people got together from drunken one-night stands, and he and Stiles were so much more than that. They had been since day one. He was going to take this, just as Stiles had demanded, and he was going to be grateful for it however it happened.

Mind made up, he surged forward, fisting his hands in Stiles' spiky brown hair and pulling him down to meet Derek's insistent mouth. Stiles let out a helpless groan as his mouth crashed into Derek's, hard and bruising and demanding, while his fingers curled over Derek's shoulders, nails biting through the fabric of his faded blue T-shirt and digging into his skin. Derek was almost embarrassed by the frantic little noises he was making as he tried to chase Stiles' lips, which had left his and instead were traveling down the side of his throat, sucking dark red bruises into the skin at short intervals. Stiles had him pinned against the back of his couch as he ground his hips down into Derek's erection, attacking and consuming and _taking_ , and Derek offered it all up freely.

"I'm going to fuck you so hard you won't even be able to sit down tomorrow," Stiles growled against the curve of his shoulder, teeth nipping at the thin skin wrapped over bone, and Derek choked out a laugh.

"That's going to make the drive back to Beacon Hills difficult," he began, hissing when Stiles's hands migrated under the hem of his shirt and mapped the hair-roughened skin of his abs and chest, nails catching on his nipples. "I'm making you drive so I can lay down in the backseat if that's the case."

"Worth it," Stiles mumbled, yanking at the shirt gracelessly until he'd finally managed to remove it. The look in his eyes was worshipful as they took in every inch of golden skin, the whorls of hair and the dark trail that disappeared behind the button of Derek's jeans. He'd seen it on more than one occasion, of course, but not like this. Never like this. "I meant it, you know."

Derek arched up reflexively when Stiles dipped his head and bit gently into his left nipple. "Meant what?" he gasped, fingers curling through Stiles' hair and bringing his head back to the right one.

"I love you," Stiles breathed into his skin. "Always have, right from the start."

"I think I loved you from the second you looked up at me after I'd spilled my coffee all over you," Derek admitted on a harsh exhale when Stiles' spider-like fingers trailed down his abs and hooked into his waistband. The words spilled from him, dying to be released after months of being held back. "It doesn't matter that we're not soulmates. Forget the fucking soul mark; you're mine, and I'm yours."

Stiles stiffened, an ache flashing through his eyes before he blinked, determination burning it away. "I don't want to talk about soulmates tonight," he whispered, nimble fingers deftly unbuttoning Derek's jeans as he lifted his hips enough to slide the zipper down. "It's just you and me, and the rest of the world can go fuck off."

Derek wholeheartedly agreed, pushing his hips up as Stiles reached inside his underwear and found his straining cock, warm and velvet and pulsing with life underneath his touch. Stiles held his breath, staring in wonder as he slowly stroked his hand up and down Derek's length despite the awkward angle. Derek found himself holding his breath as well, watching the emotions play over Stiles' face instead of watching what he was doing. After several moments filled only with the sounds of their harsh breathing, Stiles glanced up and caught Derek's intense gaze, smiling crookedly.

"I think we're both wearing too many clothes," he concluded. Derek nodded, the gesture an effort. He watched greedily as Stiles grabbed the hem of his own shirt and stripped it, this time with movements that were precise and efficient. It was when he impatiently started to lean back in that Derek held a hand up, his palm flat against Stiles' chest. They sat for a moment, Derek reveling in the sensation of Stiles' heartbeat pounding furiously beneath his fingers and Stiles evidently soaking in the feeling of having Derek's hands on his body.

"We should move this to my room," Derek suggested, voice rough. His eyes burned into Stiles'. "I have stuff in my nightstand."

"Use it a lot, do you?" Stiles murmured, and the heat of Derek's gaze turned blazing.

"Not once since I met you," he rasped, swallowing a groan at the way Stiles' breath caught in his throat. "None of them were you, and I wasn't willing to settle for anything less."

"Your room. Now," Stiles commanded in a broken voice, and Derek pushed them both up off the couch. Their lips locked back onto each other's and they stumbled through the hallway and into Derek's darkened room. Derek hooked his fingers through Stiles' belt loops and when his knees hit the edge of the bed, he fell backward and pulled Stiles with him.

They landed with a soft jolt but hardly missed a beat as Stiles scrambled over Derek's prone body, his lips never leaving Derek's. He continued nipping and sucking and licking into Derek's mouth as his hands fumbled with his pants, pushing them impatiently over his hipbones along with his underwear. When he was all but naked, Derek flipped them over and dropped his hips, rubbing his still-clothed cock against Stiles', relishing the way Stiles panted and squirmed underneath him.

The breath left him entirely when he wiggled, shifting his body downward to be able to get his mouth at cock-level, and was confronted with his own jet-black initials staring up at him in stark relief against Stiles' pale skin. "What the hell?" he choked out, eyebrows climbing as he bolted backward, and Stiles frowned, lifting himself up on his elbows and glancing down at his soul mark bemusedly.

"I'm in the process of getting naked. You should have expected to see it," he remarked with a soft snort, and Derek's eyes flew up to his, wide with shock.

"I expected to see a soul mark," he began, swallowing past a lump in his throat. "I didn't expect to see my initials on you."

Stiles' eyebrows drew together in confusion. "How did you not know?"

"How _would_ I know?" Derek countered, voice frantic as the ache bloomed in his heart and overwhelmed him. _We were so goddamn close._

Stiles sat up, concern spreading across his face. "Derek, every guy I've dated over the last couple months has had your initials. Donovan Holbrook, Drew Hessington, David Harper, Devin Hill, Dean Halverson." His voice dropped lower and lower as he ticked off the names unsteadily.

"I didn't know any of their last names!" Derek bleated, and Stiles blinked away tears.

" _I_ asked _you_ if we were soulmates." His voice was little more than a whisper. "If your initials weren't on me, I would have already known."

The logic floated around in his spinning, swirling brain until things calmed and settled. "Goddamn it, Stiles," he ground out. "I wish I'd never found out. This makes it so much fucking worse, don't you get it?"

Stiles reached for him, grabbing his wrist and tugging on it until Derek half-lost his balance and tumbled forward, hands flying out to catch himself before he collapsed on Stiles' chest. "It doesn't matter," Stiles coaxed, "not tonight."

Derek stared at him in dismay for a few moments before the pleading look in his eyes overturned any objections Derek might have had. He was right, it _didn't_ matter. If he had to think about it, he would just allow himself to pretend that his own soul mark was different. He could see the heavy black DH curling right under Stiles' hip bone, and he traced the pad of his thumb over the mark reverently. "You're mine," he murmured.

"Always have been," Stiles returned, a wistful, sad smile barely curving the side of his mouth. "But now I really just want to fuck the hell out of you. Get naked already."

Derek complied, hurriedly shucking his jeans and tugging Stiles' the last little bit over his feet, tossing both to the floor in a crumpled heap. Dipping his head, he lowered his body until he was about to wrap his lips around Stiles. A hand on his shoulder stopped him and he glanced back up, looking at Stiles through half-lidded eyes and a thick fan of black lashes, and smirked at Stiles' sharp intake of breath and the sudden jump of his cock. "Do you object to me going down on you?" he asked mildly, and Stiles smirked in return.

"Not at all. Just don't work me too hard, okay? Otherwise I'm going to come all over your lips instead of in your ass, and that's kind of my end goal for the night."

The groan that escaped Derek was loud and mortifying and he cursed his body's sudden yet inevitable betrayal. To distract from the unexpected sound and his flushed cheeks, he wasted no more time in practically inhaling Stiles' cock. The younger man's even louder groan eased his embarrassment somewhat and, in a rather dick move, he smirked at Stiles-or as best he could with a mouthful of penis. Stiles half-glared down at him, but the effect was lost through his gasping and the way his head dropped back while he fisted handfuls of the sheets and twisted them in his white-knuckled grip.

Derek slowed his motions, settling into an easy rhythm of back-and-forth, up-and-down, the tip of his tongue flirting with the slit of Stiles' cock while he gently palmed his balls, lifting and rolling them around in his hand, fingers stroking along the underside and over the thin skin that separated the two of them. Stiles started to squirm, but hesitantly, clearly not wanting to run the risk of having anything yanked or scraped.

Finally, he twined his fingers through Derek's hair and tugged, bringing Derek's head up enough that he could lift his eyes and deliberately watch Stiles and the way his chest heaved with his erratic breathing. "You have to stop," he grunted, his voice a low whine. "I need a break before I lose it."

Derek pulled back, releasing Stiles' erection with a loud, wet pop, slicking his fingers up the shaft and over the head, then skimming his fingertips over the slit that was weeping a stream of pre-come. Unable to resist, he leaned back and licked at the fluid, tongue flat against the sensitive skin as he lapped at it, and Stiles's body convulsed into one long, uncontrollable shudder. " _Stop_!" he hissed, hips jerking, and he palmed himself to get some of that control back.

Stiles rolled away and Derek watched him go, wondering if maybe he'd pushed a little too far. His mind was eased when Stiles sat up on his knees, grabbed hold of Derek's shoulders, and pushed. Derek fell flat on his back and shivered a little at the heated gleam in Stiles' eyes. "You promised to fuck me so hard I won't be able to sit down tomorrow," he reminded Stiles, his voice gruff and gravelly. "I sincerely hope you don't break your promises."

"I try not to," Stiles muttered, moving between Derek's legs and rocking forward, his length sliding along Derek's own and settling into the line of Derek's hip. "I can promise I won't break this one."

Derek could feel his heart pumping erratically at the silkiness of Stiles' voice and the knowledge of what was to come. Literally. Twisting, he propped himself up on his hip as he reached for the drawer in his nightstand, reaching in and withdrawing with a tube of lube and a foil packet clamped between his fingers. He could feel the twitch of Stiles' cock against his own and lifted one leg, his thigh half-curling around the curve of Stiles' ass. Stiles plucked the condom out of his hand, quickly tore it open, and pinched the reservoir tip. Derek's hands covered his and Stiles let him take over, rolling the condom up and over his cock, stroking him surely as he went.

"I want to watch you fuck yourself on your fingers," he breathed, pressing a light kiss to the coarse hair surrounding the base of Derek's cock, and Derek was more than happy to oblige. His fingers trembled as he squeezed some lube onto them, more than enough to slick his entrance up comfortably. He did this on a regular basis, so he didn't even bother starting with one finger to warm himself up. He slid two inside, twisting, curling, stretching the edges of his hole, pumping steadily until he was up to the second knuckle of both fingers. Stiles' eyes avariciously tracked his movements. It didn't take long for him to lose patience and dip in, sucking the head of Derek's cock into his mouth and stroking in time with the motion of Derek's fingers. Derek faltered, his head dropping back as the sheer pleasure of finally having Stiles' mouth on him overtook the feeling of fucking himself on his own fingers. His hand fell slack and then he withdrew, but it was only moments before he felt Stiles' fingers scooping up the excess lube and sliding back in.

His erection strained, his hips lifting off the bed as Stiles simultaneously finger-fucked his ass and sucked the life out of his cock. "I'm going to come before you ever get inside me," he gasped in warning, and Stiles reluctantly drew back, giving his shaft one last lick up the underside of it. "Not so fun when you're the one being told to stop, is it?" he grumbled, the half-smile on his face belying any true irritation.

"I don't have to stop completely, though," Stiles reminded him slyly, and then the head of his cock was pressing against Derek's ass. "I just get to do this instead." Derek groaned as he felt the head stretching him, the ache turning into a slight burn as Stiles continued to push forward, filling him, expanding everything to accommodate his size. When he stilled his movements Derek whined in protest, trying to thrust against him, take him deeper, but Stiles' fingers digging into his hips stopped him. "I want to feel everything," Stiles explained, voice low, and Derek couldn't bring himself to protest.

When Stiles' head began to lower, Derek lifted his, eagerly meeting the kiss. Stiles' earlier kisses had been passionate, demanding, bruising, but this one was relaxed in its confidence. Stiles licked into his mouth and he opened up, his legs unconsciously spreading at the same time, and Stiles fucked into him sharply with a sudden thrust of his hips. Derek bit off a choked gasp, his ass aching deliciously as Stiles set up a steady cadence, fucking him slowly, thoroughly, and Derek swore he couldn't go any deeper, but somehow he did.

Derek braced his feet against the bed and lifted his hips, changing the angle so Stiles could hit that sweet spot inside his ass that had him seeing stars. His cock ached and he reached down, wrapping his fingers around it and jerking it roughly until Stiles' hand joined his, and they both slid up and down in tandem until Derek could feel the rush start to curl through him from the toes up.

"Fuck, I'm going to come," he gritted out, and Stiles' eyes narrowed in concentration as he picked up the pace, fucking into him hard with every thrust, and Derek could feel it uncoil in the base of his spine. His throat ached as he chased the pleasure, the release that was so close it burned on the back of his tongue and then he was gasping, growling, and shouting in relief as he let go, come rushing out of him in furious spurts, coating both his chest and Stiles'.

The sight of him wanton, debauched, and come-covered apparently did something to Stiles, who followed him over the edge. His hips strained toward Derek as his orgasm rushed through him. Stiles continued to pump into Derek through the aftershocks until he was depleted, his upper body trembling as his arms shook from the effort of holding himself up. When the last of his strength drained out of him, Derek lay his arm out to catch him as he collapsed. They lay on their backs, breathing harshly for a minute or two. Eventually Stiles slid the used condom off and tied it, dumping it into the trash can beside the bed before he rolled over and snuggled into Derek's side, head tucked underneath his chin.

They were silent for a few minutes, neither able to put into words what they were feeling. Eventually Stiles pressed a kiss to Derek's chest, his lips brushing reverently against the soft whirls of dark hair. "I love you," he said on a sigh, and Derek could feel him sag more fully against his side. It was only moments before he was fast asleep.

Derek stared at the ceiling, not quite sure how this had happened, but not about to question it. Now that they'd finally gotten past Stiles' mental block about not being soulmates, there was nothing to stop them from living happily ever after. A silly, sleepy, happy smile split his lips and when his eyelids drooped shut, he was pretty sure they could see his teeth from space.

When he woke the next morning he automatically reached for Stiles, disappointed when his hand came up empty. "Stiles?" he called blearily, rolling over and digging his thumb and forefinger into his eyes to try to wake himself up. "You better be making breakfast, babe." The endearment fell naturally from his lips, half-surprising him with the ease of it.

When there was no response, he pulled himself out of the bed and grumbled, padding into the kitchen. He blinked when he realized the kitchen and the living room both were completely empty. Cocking his head slightly, he concentrated in order to hear the sounds of the shower running or the toilet flushing, and only came to the realization that his apartment was as quiet as a tomb.

Heart thumping, he turned back for his room, digging his phone out of the jeans that were still lumped on the floor, though without another pair wrapped around them. No texts. No voicemails. Glancing around, his heart fell when he realized there wasn't a note, either.

Derek pulled his jeans and a plain black tee on in record time, jamming his feet into his sneakers without benefit of socks and grabbing his keys and wallet from the counter before sweeping out the door, phone trapped between his ear and shoulder. Stiles had just gone back to his dorm to finish packing for the trip back to Beacon Hills, he told himself, because as was habitual with him, he'd literally left it to the last minute. The phone continued to ring and ring until it went to voicemail, and Derek punched the end call button with a frustrated curse.

It was only ten minutes later-yeah, he'd broken a couple speed limits, or eight-that he was pounding on Stiles' door. Eli, his roommate, opened it with a glare.

"Can't you assholes let a man get some sleep?" he groused, spearing a hand through his hair, matted from being crushed into his pillow. "I'm fucking exhausted and Stiles tore through here a half hour ago. I just barely fucking got back to sleep."

Derek stared at him, the panic tasting acrid as it built up in the back of his throat. "Stiles was here?" he asked hoarsely, and Eli blinked, as if he was finally realizing what was going on.

"Yeah," he answered, more subdued this time. "Grabbed his suitcase, dumped it upside down on his bed, threw it back in the closet, and ran back out again like a bat out of hell." Derek's gaze darted to the bed, which was strewn with jeans, underwear, graphic tees, and a half-dozen video games. Eli cleared his throat uncomfortably. "My guess is he isn't coming back for awhile," he added, gentling his voice, and Derek nodded mutely.

"If you see him, tell him…" He trailed off while Eli watched him expectantly. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

Eli hesitated before nodding. "Happy Thanksgiving, dude," he offered instead, tentative, and Derek laughed bitterly.

"Fuck Thanksgiving. I have nothing to be thankful for."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise the next chapter offers an explanation for Stiles' actions. He had his reasons, I swear.


	9. Fallout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is going to be painful, almost as much as (if not moreso than) the last one. But chin up! Next chapter has some serious feels. And chapter 11 has something that most of you have been looking forward to... and some stuff you definitely haven't. ;) FYI, things start to move into a condensed timeline here. This chapter and next move a little more quickly than I feel they realistically should have, but a lot had to happen between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so a slight suspension of disbelief may be required here.

Stiles was certain he had never been more miserable in his entire life, and that included the day that Lydia had told him a snow cone had a better chance in hell than he did with her. He spent two solid weeks hating himself because it rapidly became clear that he had unintentionally and irrevocably severed the tie that had invisibly bound he and Derek together from their first meeting.

He'd been preparing himself for an onslaught of text messages, of call after call until he finally mustered the courage to answer. He hadn't at all expected to not hear from Derek once. Not a text, not a call, not even an accidental butt-dial. He'd been mentally composing his apology and his excuse in his head, fine-tuning the entire thing until he thought he might have a chance at getting Derek to forgive him. After two weeks, he had to acknowledge that he would never have a chance to use it, and Derek clearly had no desire to give him an opportunity to earn that forgiveness.

The first time he saw Derek after Thanksgiving break was over, he was pretty sure he knew what it felt like to have his heart ripped out. Derek had been walking with a petite brunette and both were laughing, that incredible smile beaming at him from a mere twenty feet away. When Derek's eyes had lifted from the girl's and landed on his, the smile had frozen in place, turning into something glassy and sharp. He resumed talking to the girl and when he'd passed by Stiles, who had come to a dead stop in shock, he shifted his shoulder just enough to skim by without grazing Stiles. It had been easily the worst moment he'd experienced since starting college.

"You're not even listening, are you?"

Stiles blinked, coming out of his Derek-induced reverie, and tried to focus on Scott. "You were saying something about Allison. Right?"

Scott sighed, rolling his eyes. "I was talking about the vet clinic I'm volunteering at. The doctor said I had real promise. That's not even close to being about Allison."

"Hey, it's not like it's not a safe bet when I have to take a guess," Stiles said with a shrug. "But congrats on the thumbs-up from the doc."

Scott frowned at him. "You could say it with a little more enthusiasm."

Stiles pasted an outrageously cheery, clearly fake grin on his face. "Way to go, future Dr. McCall!" he boomed, but it was hollow, and they both knew it.

"You know, this isn't exactly what I was thinking when I mentioned we hadn't seen each other in forever and should hang out," Scott pointed out as he sank into the back of the tiny loveseat shoved in-between Stiles' and Eli's beds.

"What?" Stiles protested. "We're hanging out, aren't we?"

"Yeah, and you're spending the entire time moaning and sighing and being completely miserable," Scott accused, though his voice was soft and sympathetic.

The words speared into Stiles' gut, deflating him like a balloon in the aftermath of a toddler's birthday party. "I can't help it, Scotty," he mumbled, eyes drifting closed. "I fucked up. I fucked up so bad. He'll never forgive me."

Scott was quiet; there wasn't any kind of encouraging response he could give to that, and they both knew it. Scott had learned the entire story when he'd gotten back from Thanksgiving break and he and Lydia had had to hold an intervention for their friend, who had spent the entire week holed up in his dorm room and drunk out of his mind. Stiles resented the pitying expression on Scott's face now; it was one thing to know how badly he'd ruined everything, and quite another to have it confirmed via Scott's (admittedly non-judgmental) face.

"Did you ever tell him why it's so important to you to not give up on finding your soulmate?" he asked, and Stiles groaned.

"It doesn't matter," he sighed. "It doesn't excuse what I did."

"Maybe not, but I think you should talk to him anyway," Scott replied firmly.

Stiles flopped onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. "Even if I thought I'd be able to get the words out, Derek would never listen to them," he whispered, a quiet finality in his voice. "I have to learn how to let him go."

It was the same thing with Lydia. "You're going to kill yourself with all this moping," she said in exasperation the day Stiles dragged himself to her apartment and flopped on her couch, bemoaning his entire existence. "You love him. He loves you. Fix this shit already, Stiles."

"Why did I even begin to think you might show a little bit of sympathy and compassion?" he groused, misery forgotten for a brief moment as he scowled at the beautiful redhead.

She made a face. "I was sympathetic and compassionate months ago. Now I'm bored with your drama, which, might I remind you, is all self-created. If you don't do something about this, I will." It was not an idle threat, which Stiles recognized.

It didn't stop him from chickening out every time the opportunity presented itself. For someone who mostly had classes on the opposite side of campus, Derek seemed to be in his space all the damn time, and Stiles despised the way his heart soared and crashed within a millisecond of each other every time he laid eyes on the other man. He was beginning to wonder how people survived heartbreak without having some other form of cardiac failure.

It didn't help that every time he laid eyes on Derek, Derek's gaze was nearly immediately drawn to him. Stiles didn't know if Derek was purposely torturing him by showing up on "his side", or if he was torturing himself, or if it was just really dumb, shitty luck. Either way, it meant he spent a lot of time dealing with icy glares that could shatter him at fifty paces, and he had to pretend he could easily ignore them.

Unsurprisingly, it never got easier. After a solid two weeks he still felt that gut-check when Derek ended up in his field of vision, and he was whining about it to Lydia one day at Bean Scene when she finally lost her cool.

"Stiles Stilinksi, I am not listening to another word of this!" she fumed, slapping down the cloth she had been using to wipe the counter. "I told you to fix this when it happened. I told you to fix it when I found you drunk and half-passed out on the football field. I told you to fix it when you spent day after day crying on my couch. Now I'm telling you, _I_ am going to fix it!"

She emerged from behind the counter with a determined glint in her eyes and Stiles started to sit up and apologize, but the glare she shot him silenced him before he could get a single word out. "Stay here. Do not move. Your ass better still be on that seat when I get back, or so help me, I will track you down and make you suffer."

It was a sufficiently scary threat, and it kept Stiles glued to the seat as the first five minutes passed. Then another five. Then ten. At thirty minutes exactly, Stiles' head snapped up from where he'd been contemplating his knees when he heard the sound of laughter. His stomach twisted instantly when he saw Lydia dragging a recalcitrant, moody Derek Hale behind her, to the amusement of the majority of Bean Scene's patrons. One long, perfectly manicured finger stabbed in Stiles' direction, and Stiles was more afraid of her than him when she snarled at Derek to "sit your ass down, and don't even think about moving until the two of you have talked to each other."

Derek sat, his eyebrows drawn together in a thunderous scowl as he refused to even acknowledge Stiles. Stiles glanced helplessly at Lydia, who nearly bared her teeth at him as she pointedly stared at the back of Derek's head, and he sighed.

"We might as well talk about it," he finally muttered reluctantly. "She'll keep us here until Christmas otherwise." Derek slid a glance in his direction without moving his head, his lips pressed together, and Stiles scowled right back and rolled his eyes. "I fucked up, okay? I fucked up, royally, and I've hated myself pretty much every day since then. Happy now?"

A disdainful snort escaped the other man before he could stop it. "Hardly," he retorted, the word drawn out through clenched teeth. "You deserve to hate yourself."

"I know, Derek! I hate myself precisely because I know exactly how much I _should_ hate myself!" he cried, throwing his arms in the air, and Derek shifted slightly until he was actually facing Stiles, studying him suspiciously.

"If this is a ploy to get me to forgive you, you can fucking forget it," he spit out. "You fucking left me, Stiles. You told me you loved me, fucked the hell out of me, and then fucking left. You broke my fucking heart and I don't know why the fuck you did it, but I will never fucking forget that."

Stiles blinked. Derek was no stranger to the occasional f-bomb, but he was pretty sure he had never heard Derek spew so much profanity at one time. "This isn't a ploy, Derek. Lydia's been on my ass pretty much ever since it happened, telling me to fix it. She got tired of waiting for me to do it on my own, so she intervened. I had nothing to do with this."

He snorted again, crossing his arms defensively over his chest as he glanced away once more. Stiles leaned forward, his elbows digging into his knees as he dropped his head into his hands, fingers plowing tunnels through the thick strands at his temples. "What I did was unforgivable," he admitted softly. "I don't expect you to forgive me. But I want you to understand why I did it. Maybe then you'll know exactly how much I destroyed myself, too."

Derek uncoiled, leaning forward into the space between them and sticking his face into Stiles'. "I will _never_ understand," he hissed, and the venom in his tone combined with the fury on his face had Stiles rearing back fearfully. "And I don't fucking _care_ that you destroyed yourself in the process."

Stiles swallowed painfully. He'd thought he'd been prepared to face down an angry Derek. What he hadn't know was that there was no way to be prepared. There couldn't be anything worse than the look of contempt and disgust on the face of the man he loved more than he'd ever known he was capable of.

He opened his mouth, though in truth he had literally no clue what he could possibly say, when Lydia came over to save the day. Sort of. She sat down beside Derek, patting his knee sympathetically, and sighed. "Look, I know you don't owe Stiles anything. I know what he did, and if I were you, I would have kicked his balls into his throat." Both Derek and Stiles winced at the graphic threat. "But he's my best friend, and I can't stand seeing him so unhappy. I also know he has his reasons for what he did, shitty as it was. Please, if not for Stiles, then for me, let him explain. Then you can leave if you want to."

The thing about Lydia was, she was a total bitch when she wanted to be. She was also an amazing person and friend, which Derek had come to understand in the time he had known Stiles. It was impossible to ignore the simple, heartfelt request, and Stiles could see the moment Derek caved. "Fine," he growled. As Lydia stood, patting him on the shoulder this time, his head swiveled until the full effect of his adamantium-melting glare was focused in on Stiles. "Talk. You have five minutes, and then I'm gone."

The pressure it put on Stiles had the words freezing on his tongue, and he stared at Derek helplessly while he struggled to figure out how to start, what to say. Derek watched him impatiently, looking pointedly at his watch as if to say, "tick tock, time's a-wasting".

Finally, he found a place to begin. "My entire life, I've been waiting to find my soulmate," he said, and it didn't escape his notice that Derek flinched. "When I was younger it was a fantasy, a fairy tale, the handsome prince and the beautiful princess who were meant to be in love and together forever. When I got older, I realized that it wasn't always a fairy tale, especially because the mark isn't definitive, it doesn't tell you exactly who, it just kind of guides you in the right direction." Derek sneered at him, but it wasn't as vicious as it had been, which was heartening.

"My mom," and here he faltered; talking about her was always difficult, even with Derek, whom he'd told the whole story to, "my mom always told me soulmates were special. That this was the person you were inextricably tied to from the moment you were born, and it was a bond that could never, ever be broken. She told me never to settle. She wanted me to wait for my soulmate, to make sure that when that person came into my life I was ready for them, that I didn't lose them because I hadn't been patient enough to wait for them. She always insisted that I was special, and so was my soulmate, and I deserved nothing less than that person. She wanted so much to see me find my soulmate, to see me be as happy as she was with my dad." He choked up a little and he had to fight back the tears before he could continue. "I've been actively trying to find him ever since. I want to show my mom that I found him, that I waited and was worthy of him."

The final words came out on a rushed exhale of breath, and Stiles could see that Derek was struggling with a response. How could he possibly be angry with Stiles after that, even though he clearly wanted to be? Stiles was honoring his mother's dying wish, what kind of a douche would he be if he still resented Stiles?

Stiles stepped in to save him. "It doesn't excuse what I did. But I wanted you to know why finding my soulmate is so important to me that I ran away from the one person I've ever been head-over-heels in love with, who I've been happy with since the day we met. I love you, Derek, that is the God's-honest truth. But you're not my soulmate, and I can't give up on finding him."

Derek stared at him for several minutes, and Stiles chose not to mention that it had long been past five minutes by that point. "Why?" he asked finally. "If what you're saying is true, and you gave up on us because of what your mother wanted for you, why did you…" _Fuck me_ were the words he refused to say, but Stiles heard them as clearly as if he'd yelled them.

"Because I'm weak," he said simply. There was no sense in trying to evade it or sugar-coat it. "I loved you, I wanted you, and that night I wanted to pretend that it was good enough. My mom wanted me to be happy above all, which is why she was so determined that I wait for my soulmate. I was happy with you. I knew we could have been happy for as long as we were together. I tricked myself into believing I was doing what she would want."

"And afterward?" There was only a trace of bitterness in the question, which was better than Stiles could have hoped for.

"I ran away because I couldn't face you," he answered immediately. "When I woke up I knew I'd been wrong to give in to how I felt about you. I also knew if I explained to you why the soulmate thing was so important, you'd try to talk me into staying for the same reasons I'd talked myself into it the night before. And you'd have succeeded. I wanted to believe it, and I would have let you convince me, and I would have been doing everything she'd begged me not to do. I couldn't do it, Derek, so I ran away. And I'll regret what I did every day for the rest of my life."

Derek sat there for a long moment and Stiles waited. Waited for him to get angry and leave, taking Stiles' heart with him. Waited for him to say Stiles was forgiven, because he loved him and couldn't hold it against him. Waited for him to decide whether Stiles' heart would live or die. "So am I supposed to forgive and forget because you thought it was better to rip my heart out than to hold yourself accountable for your own actions?" His voice was pleasant, his smile genial, and Stiles knew he'd been wrong. This was worse. So much worse.

"You're not supposed to do anything but what you want to do," Stiles replied softly. "I'm not asking anything of you except for the time you've already given me, to explain. I wanted you to know it wasn't because I didn't love you enough. It was because I loved you too much."

Derek blew out a breath and stared at Stiles. "I don't know if I _can_ be your friend again," he said finally. "Things have changed between us too much. But we were good friends once and…" Stiles' heart rate shot into overdrive when Derek paused, hardly daring to believe he might be granted a second chance, especially considering how angry Derek had been only ten minutes ago. "And I don't love you anymore. So it might be easier to try again."

Stiles couldn't breathe. He couldn't inhale, couldn't even gasp in a half-breath. Derek didn't love him anymore. He'd finally broken that fragile, beautiful bond between them. "That's… that's good," he finally managed, wheezing. "It'll be easier, if you don't love me. We can, uh, concentrate on being just friends. Really good friends. That's all." He tried to nod but knew it came across as if a puppeteer was jerking on his strings for the way his head bobbed erratically.

Derek gave him a strained half-smile. "I hope we can," he offered, though it didn't sound entirely genuine. "Maybe if we can put all the romantic bullshit behind us, we can become the kind of friends we should have been."

"Time to give it the old college try," Stiles responded with fake cheer.

Derek barked out what was apparently a surprised laugh. It was clear he hadn't intended to allow Stiles that kind of familiarity, at least not yet, despite his well-intentioned words. "I can't see you giving it anything less than your all," he admitted, unexpectedly gentle, and Stiles sighed quietly. Maybe, just maybe, Derek was right after all. If they put all the bullshit behind them, they could move on and actually be the amazing friends they'd started out as.

Stiles would just have to spend the rest of his life pretending he didn't love Derek with all his heart and soul.


	10. Going  Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go! There's some tension and a few melancholy moments, but it leads up to some nice, sweet feels at the end. :) Enjoy your respite from the angst and pain! (Oh, and don't forget last chapter I warned that things would move a little faster than I thought was truly realistic, because of the crunched timeline. Suspension of disbelief, remember.)

Derek was honestly surprised when Stiles showed up on his doorstep the next night, as if nothing had changed at all. He knew they were going to try to, somehow, make their way back to where they had been, but he hadn't anticipated it would start so soon.

"No time like the present, right?" Stiles joked awkwardly when Derek mentioned it. He stared at Stiles until the younger man deflated. "Look, if we're really going to do this, we have to, y'know, _do_ it. If we wait until it's comfortable, we'll keep coming up with excuses for why we should keep waiting, and then before you know it a month will have passed, and then two, and then the semester will be over, and we'll be strangers." He paused. "And I'm suddenly feeling the strangest sense of déjà vu."

He couldn't help it, he laughed. "Because we've had this conversation more than once," he reminded Stiles, trying to erase the spontaneous grin and smother it under a serious expression. "We haven't been very good at not screwing things up."

"But this time'll be different, right?" Stiles countered as he flopped onto Derek's couch, picking up the remote and turning the TV on, then proceeding to start flipping channels. "I mean, you don't love me anymore. It won't be awkward and tense. At least, not eventually."

Right. His brilliant idea to tell Stiles he didn't love him anymore. He wondered how long he'd be able to pull that act off convincingly; he sure as hell hadn't been able to convince himself, though he'd spent all of Thanksgiving break trying. Not a single person in his family had believed him when he'd insisted that he couldn't love anyone who would do something so horrible to him. Not that he'd told them the truth, of course, but his cover story was almost as bad.

The first time he saw Stiles after break was over, he'd sworn it felt like someone was trying to yank his guts out through his throat. His only satisfaction came from the look of devastation on Stiles' face when their gazes had landed on each other and Derek somehow managed to freeze him out, walking past him as if he didn't exist.

Derek had been haunted the rest of the day by the pain in Stiles' eyes.

He still didn't know if he could forgive Stiles, but he was willing to admit that he understood the motives behind his actions. He _would_ have tried to convince Stiles to stay, to give their relationship a chance. They would have been happy, at least temporarily, and Derek absolutely would have played to that to get Stiles to give in, and Stiles knew it. He wasn't stupid. Avoiding Derek clearly was his only chance at not getting sucked into betraying the promise he'd made to his mother.

If Derek privately thought it was an unfair promise for her to have extracted from Stiles, he would never breathe a word of it.

So Stiles sat on his couch and they watched a movie together. They didn't say much, but it was something. It was a start. The next night when Stiles showed up again, Derek ordered delivery online and they sat quietly while they studied for finals, each of them occasionally bitching about something they were reading. The following night was a Friday and when Stiles arrived at his apartment he suggested, without quite meeting Derek's eyes, that they go out and get a beer. Derek had hesitated, then with a shrug, "Yeah, okay." They went to a place known for being relatively blind to their patrons' ages, Derek bought them two beers, and they sat beside each other and watched the game on the TV without really talking, but both were comforted in just being there with the other.

It was less of a struggle than Derek had imagined it would be. He was still hurt, still angry, and he recognized that both emotions were justified. But it was _Stiles_. From the moment he started trying to convince himself he wasn't in love with him anymore he knew he'd been lying, and now there was no point in even pretending. He still loved the idiot, and for as much as it hurt to be around him, it hurt more not to be. There was no way to know if they'd ever be okay with each other again, but it was worth it to him to at least try.

Just over a week after Lydia had forced them to talk, they were almost in a place where hanging out was comfortable. The underlying tension was still there, but it wasn't hovering over them like a cloud anymore. Derek was still a little on the quiet side, but that wasn't unusual even under the best of circumstances. Stiles, on the other hand, had resumed his normal chatty demeanor.

"Dude, I got it!" Stiles crowed one day as he swung the apartment door open, dropping his backpack on the floor by the dining room table with a loud thump. Another three steps had him in the living room where he flopped on the couch and sprawled out, taking up half the space, as usual. Derek lifted one eyebrow.

"Herpes?" he surmised with a smirk, knowing it would annoy Stiles. They'd both dropped the pretense of dating and neither one of them was sleeping around. Derek was pretty sure neither of them had even so much as looked at another person with interest since That Night. Still, it was fun to taunt him just a little.

Stiles, predictably, made a face at him. "No, you asshole. Class signups for next semester were today. I got Law and Development, no issues. Not even wait-listed."

Derek blinked. They'd decided about a month and a half earlier that they would try to take the class together, as it was required for Derek's degree and it was an elective for Stiles' Criminal Justice program. He was surprised Stiles still wanted to take it. Then again, Stiles was all about throwing himself into getting things back to normal. "With Decker? Tuesdays at noon?"

Stiles nodded in the affirmative. "Which is fucking horrible, I can't believe these assholes scheduled a two-hour class right at lunchtime," he grumbled.

"You didn't have to take it, it's not a required part of your program," Derek pointed out quietly, and Stiles shrugged, the discomfort evident on his face.

"I'd already planned out my entire schedule," he muttered. "If I'd gone for something else, I would have had to Rubik's cube the whole thing again."

Derek gave him a strained smile. "Then I'm glad it all worked out."

Most days were like that. They talked, they hung out, they settled back into being in each other's spaces, but there was still just that… edge. The sense that they were walking on a tight rope and they were doing a reasonably good job of maintaining their balance, but if they shifted even just a little bit, the whole thing would come toppling down.

Given all of that, Derek was somewhat in disbelief the day they were sitting in Bean Scene for a study session coffee break, talking about Christmas vacation, and he suddenly blurted out, "Do you want to drive back to Beacon Hills with me?"

Stiles stared at him, stunned. It wasn't that it was a completely incomprehensible concept, but up to this point, it had been Stiles who was putting in the lion's share of effort in restoring their friendship. It was fair, considering he'd been the one to fuck it all up, but it was a huge leap of faith on Derek's part, considering it meant spending hours together in a car, just the two of them. He couldn't kick Stiles' ass out if it became too difficult to cope with his presence. Not that he'd kicked Stiles out of his apartment yet, but still, it was the knowledge that he at least had that option that gave him comfort.

"We're both going back to Beacon Hills for break, right?" he continued uncomfortably. "It doesn't make sense for us to both drive our own vehicles back."

"Except for then one of us is left without a ride for the entirety of their vacation," Stiles pointed out.

Derek shrugged. "You can borrow the Camaro. We have other cars at my house," he replied nonchalantly, though his brow furrowed when Stiles gaped at him.

"You'd let me borrow your baby for three whole weeks?" he gasped.

"Sure. I trust you."

The words came out unbidden, but they were undoubtedly true. For as much of a roller-coaster ride as their relationship had been, Derek trusted Stiles unequivocally. The look on Stiles' face caused something in Derek's chest to tighten until he was breathing shallowly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I, uh, I think I could do that," Stiles answered finally, almost shyly, and Derek's chest loosened, and he breathed a little easier.

The four days between then and the morning of their departure were so chaotic with finals and last-minute studying that they didn't get to see much of each other. They texted, which Derek found easier and easier to do automatically instead of carefully considering every reply, and Stiles came over one night to help Derek construct the note cards he was allowed to use for his Econ final, but other than that they had some time apart. Derek figured it was for the best; it kept him from stressing too much about their impending road trip.

Then came Friday morning. Both of them had finished with finals the day before and they'd planned on heading out at the crack of dawn. Stiles had whined about it, of course, and Derek had countered with a roll of his eyes and the observation that he could sleep until noon every damn day of break if he wanted to. Stiles had grudgingly capitulated and agreed to meet at Derek's apartment at eight am. That way he could stow his Jeep in the garage Derek paid an extra hundred and fifty dollars a month for instead of leaving it in the dorm parking lot for three weeks.

Derek would be lying if he said he wasn't riddled with anxiety from the time he woke up until 8:03, when the unmistakable sound of the Jeep in the parking lot below settled him and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He leaned out the window and aimed his garage door opener at the small stall, watching as the door opened and Stiles eased inside. The Camaro was already parked right next to it, moved half an hour earlier and packed with everything they'd need for the trip up the coast.

When Stiles came stumbling in through his apartment door a minute later, Derek couldn't even begin to suppress his smile. He wouldn't deny that he was still hurt, which had continued to linger even after his anger had faded, but he had forgiven Stiles because he knew the younger man's decision to leave had been made rashly and without malice. Derek loved him and he knew Stiles loved him, too, and he wasn't willing to destroy that.

So Derek smiled, and laughed, and grabbed Stiles' shoulder to hold him upright when he tripped over the edge of the rug in the entryway. "How many times are you going to do that before you remember the rug is there?" he asked, amused, and Stiles grinned sheepishly.

"Until you get rid of it?" he offered. "Your next place needs to be carpeted. I mean, the hardwood floors are gorgeous and all, but they're hazardous to my health."

"You realize I don't plan on moving until after I'm done with grad school, right?" Derek returned, smirking.

Stiles shrugged as he pushed past Derek into the kitchen, reaching into one of the cupboards for his mug, a black one with the face of Darth Vader on it and the caption, "Sith happens". Derek had gotten it several months earlier, thoroughly pleased at the thought of how huge Stiles' smile would be when Derek presented it to him. Stiles had responded by getting him one with the words, "You're the Obi-Wan for me," and they both pretended it was a gag gift and not the truth.

"You're going to have to move eventually," Stiles responded as he pulled down the mug, and Derek was about to tell him to use one of the travel mugs instead so they could leave sooner, but Stiles' next words stopped him. "I figure I'll be there as often as I am here."

The casually-spoken words were like a punch to the stomach. Derek honestly hadn't thought much about life beyond school, but somewhere in the back of his mind he'd assumed that Stiles would be his other half for the rest of their lives, even if it wasn't necessarily romantic. Logistics, however, might not allow them that constant companionship. "Are you planning on moving back to Beacon Hills?" Derek responded quietly, and Stiles studied him with guileless eyes.

"Aren't you?"

Derek couldn't keep looking into that wide-open gaze. He focused his attention on grabbing their travel mugs out of the cupboard, both of them with Admiral Akbar's face emblazoned over the words, "It's a frap!" They never failed to make Stiles laugh, although apparently right now the best they could evoke was a distracted half-smile as he glanced at them. "You know I have to," he replied finally. "I'm the heir-apparent for mayor of Beacon Hills. But I don't want you following me back because you feel like that's your only choice."

He could feel Stiles' hand land on his arm, and he steadfastly refused to look down at it. The warmth seeping through his skin and into his blood like fire was proof enough of how viscerally he reacted to Stiles. "I always knew I'd return anyway," Stiles confessed softly. "I don't want to be away from my dad my whole life. I love that town. I always assumed I'd go back, sign on as a deputy, maybe become Sheriff one day like my dad. I wouldn't be following you. That would just be a bonus," he added cheekily, and Derek allowed a small smile to cross his face. Then Stiles lifted the mug, took a long swallow, and promptly spit it out. "Hot! Hot! Fuck, that's hot," and Derek half-snorted, half-choked on his laughter.

"Here, pour that in one of the travel mugs," Derek suggested, whacking not-so-gently on Stiles' back as he coughed and sputtered. "We're already fifteen minutes late getting on the road."

"Slave driver," Stiles muttered as he carefully poured the liquid from one mug to the other, taking care not to spill any of it on his fingers. "You have breakfast in the car?" he asked as he stuck the used mug in the dishwasher.

Derek rolled his eyes. "Yes, Stiles. There are s'mores and chocolate strawberry Pop-Tarts in the top of the grocery bag, just for you."

"Dude, you are literally the best ever," Stiles enthused gratefully, and Derek went for a smirk and settled on a gentle, fond smile. "I'd hug you and all, but my hands are kind of full." He held up both of their coffee cups with a grin.

"Probably for the best," Derek said as he opened the front door for Stiles, following him out and pausing to lock it firmly. "I'd like to avoid bodily harm before sitting in the driver's seat for the next three to four hours."

"Fuck you," Stiles sassed.

Before Derek could even think about the words coming out of his mouth, he was retorting, "Been there, done that, don't need a replay," and the two of them stared at each other for a full five seconds. Derek was horrified that he'd been the one to bring up That Night, but after Stiles' initial shock, he burst into laughter.

"You are such an asshole!" he snorted, continuing down the hall to the elevator. Derek blew out a breath of relief and followed behind, arriving just as the doors opened. They stepped inside, but the silence was surprisingly comfortable and companionable instead of awkward.

Derek was honestly looking forward to the trip. He'd argued when Stiles had suggested they drive up the coast, reminding him it would be quicker to go north through Richmond and Vallejo. His thought was to follow I-80 to Vacaville, take I-505 north and connect with I-5 and take it straight up to Red Bluff. He conceded they were going to have to backtrack west along Route 36 a little bit once they hit Red Bluff, but it would keep their road trip to a reasonable four and a half hours.

Stiles, however, had whined and pleaded until he got his way. He wanted to take the bridge over to San Francisco, follow Route 1 up the Pacific Coast until they hit Capetown, then head back east. It lengthened their trip to seven and a half hours. It should be longer, with the inevitable stops for food, gas, bathroom breaks, and a little bit of sight-seeing, but Derek was confident the Camaro would easily beat Google Maps' projected times.

It really wasn't a hardship to take the scenic route. It was beautiful, he hadn't done it in a long time, and he couldn't have asked for a more perfect traveling companion. If he struggled not to just reach over and take Stiles' hand, interlocking their fingers and driving in silence while Stiles chattered about the water dashing against the cliff rocks and the smell of the ocean air and what he wanted to see at their next stop, well, that was the only thing marring the perfection of the journey.

The first two hours of the trip played out almost like that, minus the holding hands part. Stiles couldn't stop talking and Derek stayed silent, watching him out of the corner of his eye, amusement firmly entrenched on his face in the form of a wide grin. He didn't have to say much because most of Stiles' conversation didn't actually require responses, just an occasional head nod, grin, or an "mmhmm". Every once in awhile Stiles would pick something horrendous on the radio and Derek would have to raise an eyebrow, prompting Stiles to turn it back to whatever had been on with a grumble under his breath about how he couldn't appreciate decent music.

"Taylor Swift, Stiles? Really? That's your definition of good music?" he responded with a scoff of disbelief.

"There are like five people in the whole world who genuinely don't like her music, and everyone else who complains about it secretly loves it, they just want to look hipster by trashing her," Stiles argued, and Derek bit his lip. He might not necessarily be trying for hipster, but he did have a thing against publically praising the trendy artists of the day.

"Look at the boats," he said instead, pointing out the colorful sails off the coastline.

Stiles side-eyed him. "Are you _really_ pulling the 'distract the five-year-old' technique on me?" he snorted disdainfully. "I'll have you know it takes a lot more than some boats to take my attention away from the fact that I'm being insulted."

"They're catamarans," Derek added hopefully, and Stiles side-eyed him for another few seconds before giving up and looking in their direction. Derek could see the wistfulness in his eyes, and before he could think (which was becoming a habit around Stiles, unfortunately), he offered, "After the spring semester is over, we can spend a week or two on Catalina. We can take a catamaran out for a few days if we want."

It was too close to sounding like them spending summer vacation together, which wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that it didn't sound like they were going to be spending it together platonically. Stiles focused his gaze on his lap and Derek fell silent, uncertain if he should retract the offer or if that would just make things worse.

"I have to ask a question," Stiles said finally, and Derek flinched away from the heaviness of his voice. "What did you tell your family?"

"About?"

"Thanksgiving."

The car could have become a vacuum for the way the sound suddenly got sucked out of it. They were both holding their breath, so there weren't even the sounds of breathing. Finally, Derek exhaled slowly. "Almost the truth. I didn't tell them we slept together, but they saw the, um, the…" He blushed.

Stiles filled in wryly, "The hickeys?" and Derek nodded.

"Yeah. I couldn't really hide it, so I told them we made out for awhile after you told me you were tired of denying us what we both wanted, then you went home. The next morning, you ghosted."

They were quiet again until Stiles asked in a small voice, "Do they hate me?"

Derek sighed heavily. "They can't, Stiles. They know how important you are to me. My sisters were heartbroken and my parents were disappointed, but they kept insisting there had to be some kind of mistake. They encouraged me to talk to you when we came back."

"Is that why you gave me another chance?" The words were nearly a whisper and Derek swallowed painfully.

"I gave you another chance because the idea of you not being in my life hurt me more than what you had done."

Stiles studied him remorsefully. "I know I've said it before, Derek, but you'll never know how sorry I am that I did that."

He waved it away, as much to avoid continuing the conversation as to indicate that it was water under the bridge. The water might be touching the bottom of that bridge, ready to rise up over, but for now it was still under it. He would just do his best to not submerge back into it and let the undertow pull him down.

They managed to slip back into contemplative silence for another hour and a half. Derek had to check a couple times that Stiles hadn't somehow died in his passenger seat, because he'd never known his friend to be so quiet for such a long period of time. Every time he glanced over he saw Stiles staring out the passenger window, forehead pressed to the glass as his eyes tracked the gorgeous landscape they were passing through without really seeing it.

He was tempted half a dozen times to break the silence, but it was comfortable, and he didn't want to be the one to end it. So he kept his eyes on the endless road in front of him, flicking glances out his window at the vast expanse of blue-green to his left from time to time, and settling into the comfort of being in the presence of the one man he loved more than anyone. It was unusual for Stiles to focus his thoughts inward rather than outward, but it said something that he was comfortable getting lost in his own thoughts around Derek. There was no need to constantly entertain the other.

Derek had a sudden vision of the two of them, years from now, curled up on the couch in their living room. Stiles was poring over file notes from one of his cold cases, glasses slipping down his nose as he chewed on a pen, and Derek was reading a speech for his next public appearance. Stiles' feet bumped up against his and neither paid it any mind because it was such a common occurrence.

The heartache punched him in the chest, reaching into his throat and grabbing hold, and he blindly swung to the side of the road as he slammed on the brakes. Stiles clutched the overhead handle, swinging wide, alarmed eyes in Derek's direction. "Jesus, Derek, what the hell was that?" he yelped. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

Derek didn't answer. He was too busy leaning his forehead against his arms, which were wrapped over the steering wheel, as he took in deep, shuddering gasps. Stiles watched him worriedly, no longer concerned for his own well-being, but for Derek's. He swung the door open, bolting out of the car and walking around, breathing in the ocean air until he calmed down a little.

When he turned back around to face the car, he saw Stiles leaning against the passenger side, chest pressed to the window and arms splayed across the roof, just watching him. "You okay?" he asked finally, and Derek nodded, face sheepish.

"I had a, kind of a…"

"Panic attack?" Stiles supplied, and he nodded again. Stiles softened in sympathy. "Been there, done that, my friend. They blow monkey dick."

Derek snorted, giggling until he nearly broke down again. Stiles moved away from the car and closed the distance between them, wordlessly wrapping his arms around Derek's waist and letting him clutch Stiles impossibly close. His head dropped, his face burrowing into the crook of Stiles' neck where it was soft and warm and slightly musky, and they clung to each other silently for what seemed a never-ending expanse of time.

When Derek finally pulled back, breathing steadier than it had been in awhile, Stiles smiled in understanding. "You good?" Derek nodded again, feeling like an emotionally-drained puppet. "Let's go home, then."

Derek exhaled slowly. "Home sounds good. Let's go home, Stiles."


	11. Meet the Hales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, I've had enough of people being assholes and feeling like they have the right to shit all over the hard work of someone who is putting so much time and effort into creating a story for others to enjoy WHEN THEY DON'T EVEN GET PAID FOR IT! You know what? If you don't enjoy it, GO THE FUCK AWAY! The amount of nastiness I'm seeing in reviews astounds me. For as much as some of you think Stiles is an asshole, YOU ARE A THOUSAND TIMES WORSE BECAUSE STILES AND DEREK ARE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS AND YOU ARE A REAL FUCKING HUMAN BEING, AND SO AM I. But some of you sure as *shit* are not acting like it!
> 
> From now on, I am deleting reviews that are not constructive in any way. I NEVER mind concrit, but I refuse to put up with people just spewing hatred and bile all over my hard work.

Stiles sat in the Hales' driveway, fingers wrapped so tightly around the Camaro's black leather steering wheel that they'd turned white. He was fairly certain his heart intended to beat him to death from the inside out; it didn't matter that Derek had assured him several times that his family didn't hate Stiles, Stiles was scared as hell to step foot in their house. He'd panicked a little the previous day when he dropped Derek off, wondering if Cora or Laura would come bounding out of the house before he could make his escape. He was tempted to turn around and go home, but that would literally be the worst thing he could do.

With a long, slow, steady breath, he gently pushed the front door open and forced his legs to untangle themselves and propel his body out of the driver's seat. The few steps to the front door were interminable, and when he pushed the doorbell, he felt like someone had hit the slow-mo button on his whole life.

Then the door opened and a teenage boy was staring at him, unimpressed. "You Stiles?" Stiles nodded, almost guiltily. The boy turned around and hollered into the house, "DEREK! That dude you're obsessed with is here!" and disappeared up the stairway. Stiles blinked, nonplussed, until Derek showed up at the door and gestured for him to come inside, glaring up the stairs in the direction the boy had gone.

"That was my asshole little brother, Nate," he grumbled. "I've been home for twenty-four hours and he's already managed to annoy the shit out of me a half dozen times."

Stiles felt a grin cracking the frozen expression of fear on his face. "I'm honestly surprised it wasn't Laura or Cora, yanking the door open and bodily hauling me inside."

Derek made a face. "They would have, but I swore if they didn't back off I'd wrestle them to the ground and tickle them until they peed their pants."

A full-body laugh burst out of him. "Oh shit, I can't wait to see you be all 'Big Brother Derek,' it'll be a whole new side to you."

A sheepish grin lit his face. "I'm not Laura's big brother," he reminded Stiles. "Although if we're talking size, I can absolutely take her."

Stiles chuckled, but the laughter died in his throat when he looked up to see an older woman, with Derek's raven-wing hair and eyes nearly as dark, studying him quietly from a doorway. Stiles was afraid _he_ was going to pee his pants under her scrutinizing stare. "Stiles," she said finally, and he swallowed past a painful lump in his throat.

"Stiles, this is my mom, Talia," Derek said unnecessarily, but Stiles was grateful for the brief moment he had to get his thoughts together.

"Mayor," he said faintly, and a smile broke out across her face. The relief that rushed through him was so intense that it almost felt orgasmic. "It's nice to meet you. Derek's told me so many things about you."

"I can imagine," she replied dryly, casting a smirk at her older son. "And you can dispense with the formalities, Stiles. I'm a mayor out there," with a lift of her chin indicating the world outside the Hale house, "but here, I'm just Talia. Or Mom," she added, gesturing at Derek. "It's so nice to meet you as well."

"Are you sure? Because I would have thought-" He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence before Derek was unsubtly jabbing an elbow into his ribs, eyebrows drawing together in a warning stare. "Thanks," he finished lamely.

"Please, come on in. The girls are dying to meet you. They've been acting like two-month-old puppies for the whole last hour, wiggling and preparing to pounce," she continued, flowing like liquid from one room to the next, and Stiles couldn't help but follow, Derek trailing behind him in quiet amusement.

When Talia led him through one side of the kitchen and out the other, they ended up in a family room of sorts. Cora was splayed out on the floor in front of the TV while Laura sat in an oversized armchair, feet tucked up under her hips. Talia cleared her throat gently and when Derek's sisters swiveled their heads to see what she wanted, they both caught sight of Stiles. They shrieked in unison, Laura tumbling out of her chair and Cora scrambling up off the floor.

They reached him at the same time and both threw their arms around his neck, and he reared back in shock at the effusiveness of their greeting. When he glanced over at Derek helplessly, he saw the grin playing at the corners of his mouth. "Um, nice to meet you both?" he offered, patting Laura hesitantly on the shoulder.

"Oh my God, I thought we were never going to meet you!" Laura squealed.

"Yeah, after you fucked Derek over at Thanksgiving, I figured you were a goner," Cora remarked, and Derek winced while their mother simultaneously pursed her lips in disapproval. Whether it was at Cora's choice of language or the fact that she mentioned it at all, Stiles couldn't tell. "I'm glad he gave your sorry ass a second chance," she added, and Talia closed her eyes, shaking her head and sighing quietly.

"My younger daughter is not the most genteel of ladies," she began, and Cora snorted. "I apologize for her bringing up such… indelicate subject matter."

"Mom," Derek begged, "just let it go already."

"It's okay, May-Mrs. Hale," Stiles reassured her hastily. "Derek and I have put it behind us. We're good now. Just friends." He plastered a giant smile on his face, praying that it came across as genuine instead of plastic, fake, and covering up an aching pain he was sure would never go away.

Talia smiled benevolently, apparently pleased to be able to put the topic to rest herself. "Are you hungry, Stiles? We have snacks in the kitchen," she added, as though he hadn't seen them three minutes earlier when they passed through.

"I'm good," he said. "I ate earlier, and I don't want to ruin my appetite for dinner. Derek's told me a lot about the fantastic meals you guys have around the holidays."

Laura snorted. "Thank Gladys, our cook. Mom hasn't made a meal since Cora was born."

Stiles could see Talia's smile growing brittle around the edges so he jumped in to redirect the conversation. "Am I going to get to meet your husband tonight, too?" he asked politely, and apparently it was the right thing to say, as her smile warmed another ten degrees.

"Jonathan is meeting with my marketing team," she answered. "We're finalizing the details for the New Year's gala. He'll be along shortly and will join us for dinner. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend some time reviewing the new budget proposal before dinner. It was lovely to meet you, Stiles."

"Likewise," he offered, though he let an imperceptible sigh of relief escape when she disappeared toward the back of the house.

" _Finally_ ," Cora hissed, grabbing Stiles' hand and pulling him down onto the couch beside her. "Now we get to get into the important stuff."

"Cora," Derek warned.

She waved him away dismissively. "Give it a rest, Der-Bear. Stiles tore your heart out and stomped it to pieces. That entitles us to be the protective siblings for a few minutes."

Stiles swallowed, alarmed, as Laura sat down on the other side of him. "We love you, Stiles, you know that," she assured him, patting him consolingly on his thigh. "But Derek is our brother and while we may get to torture him, we're the only ones who are allowed that privilege. So let me say this so there is no misunderstanding: you ever, _ever_ pull a Thanksgiving on him again, and we will take turns ripping your throat out, with our teeth. Are we clear?"

He paled. "Crystal," he croaked. "But I have to fuck up again before we get to that point, right?"

She beamed. "Of course. We won't attack without cause."

"I guess I should be grateful for small blessings," he muttered, and Laura and Cora blinded him with twin grins.

"So. Time to tell us all about yourself," Cora invited, and Derek rolled his eyes as Stiles scratched at the back of his neck in bewilderment.

"What in the world do you want to know?" he asked.

Laura and Cora traded impish glances. "Everything," they chorused.

Which was how, by the time dinner rolled around and they were seated at the giant mahogany table, Stiles felt like he'd known the Hale siblings for his entire life. He kind of, sort of had, although he hadn't actually _known_ them, exactly. He'd just known who they were. They were baffled by how they'd all managed to be born in the same town, relatively close in timing, and yet never met each other.

Stiles had pointed out that Laura and Cora had gone to boarding school for almost their entire lives, although Cora only until she finally rebelled and had a tantrum, forcing her parents to allow her to attend public school when she was a junior. "Guilty," she had said with a happy grin, showing her complete lack of remorse for her actions. And Derek had been sent to live with his uncle when he started school, since Peter Hale lived right down the street from one of the best prep schools in the country, so Stiles had only seen him at a distance when he was home on summer vacations. He refrained from commenting on his observations, at the time, of how unattractive Derek was; though, honestly, he figured it would endear him to Derek's sisters even more if he let that tidbit slip.

He got his first up-close-and-personal look at Papa Hale when they were all being seated, and he knew instantly what Derek was going to look like in twenty-five years. The man was an older replication of Derek, down to the multi-colored eyes and bunny teeth, and Stiles just _wanted._ He wanted to see that version of Derek in twenty-five years, sitting across from him at the breakfast table and curled up next to him at night.

Clearing his throat, he smiled his best, most cordial smile. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Hale."

Jonathan Hale looked up at him in surprise. "Oh, Stiles. Right?" He looked around the table at his family for confirmation, relaxing at their nods. "I'm sorry, I'd forgotten you were going to be here tonight. I would have come home earlier to meet you."

Stiles glanced at Derek, whose head was bowed until he was almost face-down in his plate, avoiding Stiles' curious gaze. "It's okay, sir. Your charming daughters kept me entertained."

"You mean they scented blood and harassed you unmercifully," Jonathan countered with a chiding glance at the daughters in question. They both shrugged unrepentantly and it struck Stiles, not for the first time, that they could have been twins if they weren't eight years apart in age. "At any rate, I'm glad you're here. Derek has spoken of you so glowingly that it feels as if you're a part of the family already."

Stiles glanced at Derek again, who seemed to be simultaneously blushing and deathly pale. He didn't know what to say, but thankfully, Talia stepped in. "Jonathan," she murmured, shaking her head subtly, and he frowned as if remembering Stiles wasn't there as his son's soulmate.

"Derek tells us you're double-majoring?" Talia cut in smoothly, and Stiles relaxed. This was something he could go on about endlessly.

"Yes, unfortunately," he muttered, eliciting a snicker from Cora. "I told my advisor I couldn't decide between what I knew would be best for me career-wise and what I _wanted_ to do, so she talked me into doing both."

"What are your majors?" Laura asked, taking a bite of pineapple from the Chinese stir-fry their cook had concocted. It was full of beef, chicken, broccoli, cashews, and pineapple, and Stiles was pretty sure he was in heaven every time he shoveled a forkful of the flavorful dish into his mouth.

Sighing, he rolled his eyes. "Berkeley's law department has a great Criminal Justice subset, which will help me move forward in my plans to take Beacon Hills' law enforcement by storm. My other love, the one I wanted to do the most but didn't think would help me as much in the long run, is Cognitive Science. I love studying people's brains and figuring out how they make the whole person function," he concluded, cheeks pinking and voice going shy. He hadn't shared that particular thought with many people.

"The day I met him, he was on his way to his Molecular Neurobiology class," Derek offered, speaking for the first time since they'd all sat down at the table. "Just the idea of it scared the hell out of me. I thought he was too smart for me."

"He is," Nate mumbled from the end of the table. Stiles started; the kid hadn't said a word since he disappeared upstairs earlier, and Stiles had forgotten he was there. "Because you're a total idiot, otherwise you wouldn't have brought him here."

"Nathan Hale!" Jonathan reprimanded him sharply. "That was an incredibly unkind thing to say."

Nate looked up from the phone he was holding in his lap and smirked. "It's true, and you all know it," he snorted. "This asshole broke his heart and here he turns up with him a month later. Going for ruining Christmas too, Derek?" he taunted, and the tone made Stiles feel ill. He cast a wide-eyed stare at Derek, who was so red-faced with anger that Stiles was almost surprised he didn't see cartoon-style steam shooting from his ears.

"Go to your room, now," Talia snapped, and Nate shoved back from the table, stomping up the stairs. Derek shot a look at his parents and they nodded, and he pushed away as well.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," he muttered under his breath at Stiles, who nodded in embarrassment.

The table was silent for a solid thirty seconds following Derek storming off after Nate, until Stiles blurted out, "I'm so sorry. I should go."

"Nonsense," Talia said firmly. "Nate was angry that we fussed over Derek so much at Thanksgiving, and I believe he's still resentful. It has nothing at all to do with you. We want you here, or we wouldn't have invited you to join us for dinner."

"Are you sure?" Stiles asked uncertainly, eyes flickering up the stairs. "I don't want to cause tension in your family."

Cora snorted. "There's always tension with him. He's a bitter, moody, obnoxious teenager, and he's unpleasant to be around ninety-nine percent of the time that he's not hiding in his room. Trust me, you're fine."

Laura threw her fork down suddenly, startling everyone. "It's not fair!" she burst out. "You should totally be Derek's soulmate. You fit here, we love you, Derek loves you, and it's clear you love him. Why couldn't you be his soulmate? Why couldn't you have some lame, normal name like Michael or Matthew or fucking Marco or something? Why does your name have to be Stiles?"

Horror rose in his throat at her words. "What?"

"You were so damn close. You've got the right last name, but the wrong first name," Cora supplied ruefully. "He told us you have his initials. You were just one letter off."

Gladys' tantalizing stir-fry turned into a leaden lump in his stomach, one that he was seconds from violently expelling from his body. "Derek's soul mark initials are MS?"

Laura stared at him. "He never told you?"

Stiles shook his head woodenly. "He told me he didn't want me to know, didn't want me to feel like I had to point any potential soulmates in his direction." He rubbed a hand over his mouth and took several deep breaths, trying to calm his churning stomach. "I never saw his mark."

Cora and Laura exchanged worried glances. "You wouldn't have. He hides it from everyone. It's on the nape of his neck, but he keeps his hair long enough to cover it."

Stiles couldn't breathe. Black dots flashed in his vision and he had to blink repeatedly to keep the family in front of him, currently staring at him in concern, from swimming out of focus. _God fucking damn it, he never knew. I never thought… I never told him my real name._

"Stiles, dear, are you okay?" Talia asked gently, and he gulped, nodding.

"I have a sensitive stomach sometimes," he mumbled. "I need some fresh air, if that's okay. I'll just go outside for a few minutes. When Derek comes down, would you ask him to come out?"

Jonathan nodded. "Absolutely. It wasn't the food, was it?"

Stiles carefully shook his head, not wanting to upset his rolling stomach any further. "No, the food was amazing," he promised. "I just need the cool air." He stumbled away from the table, aware that his bizarre actions were causing a number of concerned looks to be exchanged, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

When he was outside, the nausea began to make way for euphoria as he started pacing back and forth in front of the house. This solved everything. He and Derek were going to be so fucking happy, he couldn't even stand it. His heart was racing, a silly grin stretching his entire face, nearly vibrating from being so damn anxious to see Derek again. When he heard the front door click shut, he whirled around and beamed at Derek, whose expression was both sour and worried.

"Are you okay? My parents said…"

"I'm fucking fine!" Stiles practically sang, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I'm the best I've ever been in my whole fucking life!"

Derek gaped at him. "What the hell?"

Stiles wanted to explain, he did, but he'd never actually thought about how to have this conversation, how to break that kind of news. He wanted to say something poetic, or heartfelt, or tender and sweet, and for the first time in his life, words failed him. So he did the only thing he knew to do, he followed his body's instincts and threw his arms around Derek, pressing their lips together and kissing him as hard as he could.

He was stunned when Derek shoved at him, pushing him back angrily. A furious thundercloud had stolen the bemused expression from his features and his chest was heaving in agitation. "Don't you ever fucking do that to me again," he hissed, and Stiles blinked, the nausea threatening to overwhelm him once more. "I told you I don't feel like that about you anymore. You can't keep fucking with me like this, Stiles!"

Stiles was frantic. He had to make Derek understand… "Derek, you don't get it," he began, practically begging, but Derek wouldn't listen.

"You need to go home, Stiles. Now," he snapped, both his face and his voice hardening into stone. "I can't deal with this right now, not on top of having to listen to Nate rant at me about… You know what, it doesn't matter. I can't do this, and I don't have to. Just go."

"But Derek-."

"NO!" Derek roared, and Stiles flinched. "Stop trying to bullshit your way back into my life! You keep fucking _doing_ this to me, Stiles, and I'm done! I don't _want_ you!"

Stiles couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe, and Derek took the opportunity to go back into the house, retrieve the car keys, and come back outside. He couldn't hold back the tears spilling over his eyelids when Derek threw the keys at him, landing in the grass at Stiles' feet. "I said you could have the Camaro for break. Keep it. I'll get it back when we get back to school."

"Derek." The single word was one of the most pitiful he'd ever spoken, and Derek flinched.

"Don't, Stiles. Okay? Just don't."

Stiles watched brokenly as his soulmate walked away from him, back into the house, and slammed the door shut between them.


	12. Clarity, Finally

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the reveal scene you've all been waiting for! :) There's some minor angst this chapter, not near on the level you've seen so far.

Derek stared out the window of the car, the Berkeley streets flying by unseen. He wasn't ready for the break to be over, to be back at school and to have to deal with his life again. To have to deal with Stiles again. Honestly, he didn't think he'd _ever_ be ready for that.

Cora heaved an aggrieved sigh, casting him a side-eyed glance. "I'm definitely glad we had this time together," she remarked dryly, and Derek flinched guiltily. "It was a great use of my last weekend before school starts back up."

"I'm sorry, Cora," he apologized, sighing. "I just have too much on my mind."

"Like the fact that you sent Stiles back to school in your Camaro, alone, in favor of road-tripping with your sisters?" she snorted caustically. They'd dropped Laura off at the airport in Sacramento so she could fly back to New York, and Cora had gotten permission to go all the way to Berkeley with Derek as long as she was back by Sunday night so she'd be ready for school to start on Monday.

Derek frowned. "I thought we decided we wanted to spend time together." Despite the issues with Stiles, he'd honestly been looking forward to having a few hours of Hale sibling time again. It had been awhile.

"Yeah, and you've spent the last two hours staring out the window without saying a word," she pointed out. Her smirk gentled into a look of understanding. "Look, I don't know what happened between you two, but we all figured out pretty quickly that you were on the outs again. It was kind of obvious when every time you looked at him you looked like you were in pain."

"He kissed me again." The words tumbled out involuntarily, and Cora gaped at him. "That first night, after dinner. I kicked him out."

"Why did he keep coming back, then?" Cora asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

Derek resumed staring out the window as they got closer to his apartment. "I couldn't handle Mom and Dad hovering over me like they did at Thanksgiving, so I acted like everything was fine. They loved him and kept inviting him over, and I couldn't tell them to stop so I asked him to humor them until break was over."

"Der," she began, but he shook his head wearily.

"Let it go, Cora," he said quietly, and she frowned, but did as he asked.

It wasn't until they pulled into the apartment complex parking lot that she spoke again. "What are you going to do now, Derek?"

He shrugged, pasting a fake smile on his face. "Get through the next few months and graduate."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," she grumbled, and he cast a warning stare at her.

"I don't even know how I'm going to get through being in the same class with him," Derek admitted. "I can't think beyond just getting to graduation. That's my only goal right now."

She looked like she wanted to say something, which was why Derek appreciated it when she bit her lip and then shrugged, tugging the keys from the ignition of her cherry-red Mustang. It was a cliché car and he'd teased her when she got it, but she'd simply raised one eyebrow and stared pointedly at his Camaro, and he'd had to accept defeat.

Derek trudged up the stairs, unlocking the apartment and stepping inside as Cora followed in behind him. He was slightly surprised that the apartment smelled fresh and clean instead of musty after being locked up for three weeks, but when he saw the Obi-Wan mug on the counter he realized Stiles must have dropped by. His heart clenched when the thought followed that Stiles had cleaned up for him, made the place smell welcoming instead of old and stale. Even after everything, Stiles was still thoughtful, still looking out for him.

"What's that?" Cora asked, gesturing at the mug as she dropped her car keys on the table. The place was fairly pristine and the coffee mug was very obviously out of place.

Derek walked over to the counter, his face falling as he realized Stiles had left his car keys in the mug. It felt almost like a slap in the face, to have his keys returned to him in the mug that declared him to be the "Obi-Wan" for Stiles. He'd known exactly what it meant when Stiles gave it to him, but for both of their sakes, they'd pretended it was just for fun.

"It's just a coffee mug," he mumbled, tipping it over and dumping his keys out. She raised an eyebrow at it but he ignored her curiosity, brushing past her to aim his garage door opener out the window. Sure enough, when the door rose high enough he could see the taillights on the Camaro and he angrily hit the button again, causing the door to reverse until it was fully closed.

"Anything I need to know about?" Cora asked, a questioning look on her face, and Derek shook his head silently. She blew out an annoyed breath but then shrugged, clearly dismissing his emotional distress because, as usual, he didn't want to talk about it. Instead, she tugged open the refrigerator door and dipped down to peer inside, scowling when she saw that it was all but empty. "You don't have anything in here but beer."

Derek rolled his eyes. "I left for three weeks. It wasn't like I was going to leave a gallon of milk and leftovers in there."

She popped back up and slammed the fridge shut. "Come on, big brother. We're going grocery shopping."

"Cora," he protested, voice verging on whining territory. "We just got home. I'm tired."

"I'm hungry," she retorted. "Get your ass back in the car, Der-Bear."

It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he'd learned that it was just as futile to try to thwart Cora's will as it was to try to thwart Laura's. Sighing, he grabbed his keys and fell into step behind her, allowing himself one last glance at the Obi-Wan mug before pushing thoughts of Stiles out of his head. He only had one more day with his little sister before she had to head back to Beacon Hills, and he was determined not to spend the time moping.

It was harder to remind himself of that determination when Tuesday rolled around. He hadn't had the option of focusing on his other classes to avoid thinking about seeing Stiles in class, as he'd managed to avoid scheduling anything for Mondays. Law and Development was his first class of the week, so he'd been dreading it and anticipating it in equal measures.

When he showed up to class he wasn't sure if he was more disappointed or relieved that Stiles wasn't there yet, and he had the luxury of sitting wherever he wanted without having to feel that awkward tug of, "Do I sit beside him like everything is fine, or do I go sit somewhere else and make it painfully obvious that this class is going to kill us both?" He picked a nondescript location in the left of the room about three quarters back, not too close to the front, not too close to the back, not right in the middle. It was a quirk he'd always had, and Stiles had teased him when Derek admitted to it.

He settled into his seat, refusing to look at the door as students straggled in one by one until it got closer to class time, at which point they started flowing in steadily. It didn't stop him from peeking up through lowered lashes, holding his breath every time the door opened until he saw that it wasn't Stiles. The minutes ticked by until it was five to noon and Stiles still wasn't there, and Derek began to wonder if he'd dropped the class. The ache in his chest made it clear that no matter what had happened, the idea of _not_ seeing Stiles was worse than dealing with the frustration, the pain, and the awkwardness of being around him again. It wasn't a surprise; that was the entire reason he'd given Stiles a second chance after Thanksgiving and it was no less true now.

At two minutes until noon Stiles eased inside, and Derek couldn't help it. His gaze lifted immediately and caught on Stiles', causing the younger man to hesitate. Derek kept his look steady, placid instead of expectant, and he saw the moment when Stiles' indecision settled and he made his way over to Derek, slipping into the desk beside him.

"Hey," he mumbled.

"Hey," Stiles returned, drumming his fingers on his desktop anxiously. It was one of his tells, and Derek always used to put his hand on top of Stiles' to settle him. Now, he focused his attention back down at his desk, studying the designs scratched into the top of it as if they were the most fascinating things ever.

"I didn't know if you were going to make it," Derek said, talking to the top of his desk.

He could hear Stiles sigh. "I'm not dropping the class, Der," he muttered, and Derek's heart squeezed at the nickname that had always been used with such affection. "Besides, pretending everything is normal and okay is my default mode now."

"Is that why you sat beside me?" Derek ventured, and Stiles blinked at him.

"You saved me a seat. I thought it would be a dick move to sit someplace else."

Derek frowned in confusion. "What do you mean? I didn't save you a seat."

Stiles poked his toe into the edge of Derek's backpack, which was so far over that it was half-under Stiles' desk. "Why isn't this under _your_ desk, then?"

Derek stared at the backpack. "Huh." Apparently his subconscious had made his decision for him after all.

The room quieted when Professor Decker strode in, dropping his satchel on the table beside the lectern. "I'm Brandon Decker and I will be teaching Law and Development this semester," he announced without preamble. "You have until January 24th to drop the class without being charged tuition. I encourage you to think long and hard about that decision because this is not going to be a cake course, although those of you who choose to remain enrolled in the class will find yourselves more enriched by the end of the semester." He picked up a thick notebook and thumbed through until he came to what was presumably the class roster. "I'm going to call off your names, and I will take attendance for the rest of the month. Not because I care if you show up to class, but I want to put names to the faces of the people who actually do."

Nervous laughter rippled around the classroom and Derek caught the bemused glance Stiles cast his way out of the corner of his eye. He listened attentively until he heard Decker call out "Derek Hale," and he half-raised his hand to get Decker's attention. Decker's sharp gaze landed on him, studied him for a moment, and then nodded before looked back down at his roster, and Derek relaxed. He focused on breathing in and out, trying not to look at Stiles too often, but allowing himself to be comforted by the scents he'd always associated with him-an unobtrusive cologne, coffee, and cinnamon toothpaste.

He came out of his own thoughts when he heard Decker stumble over a name for the first time. "Mist-. Miss-."

Beside him, Stiles sighed. "Just call me Stiles, it's easier," he called out, and Decker nodded in apparent relief.

"Mr. Stilinski, I presume?" he clarified, and Stiles nodded. Decker inclined his head in acknowledgment and scrawled something in the notebook.

Derek twisted in his seat, swallowing past a lump in his throat. "'Just call you Stiles'?" he echoed, feeling strangely detached from his body. "'It's easier'?"

Stiles was watching him warily. "Yeah."

"I thought your name _was_ Stiles," he said faintly, and Stiles grimaced.

"Stiles is a nickname, I've been called that since I was six," he explained quietly, eyes not leaving Derek's. "My real name is Polish, but nobody could ever pronounce Mstislav, so it was just easier to start going by Stiles."

Derek stared at him dumbly for a few moments before slowly lifting his hand and rubbing it over the nape of his neck, right where the edge of his hair covered his soul mark. Stiles' eyes followed the motion and he paled, grimacing guiltily. Something twisted in his chest. "You knew." It wasn't a question, but an acknowledgment. Stiles nodded, his expression anxious.

The world tilted on its axis and Derek lurched to his feet, stumbling away from his desk. He felt like he was on one of those carnival rides that had him spinning around until he couldn't tell up from down as he made his way toward the classroom door, toward escape. _He knew._

He barely heard the surprised murmurs from his classmates, the sound of Stiles desperately calling his name, of Decker addressing him with concern, as he all but flung himself out the door. Bending, he braced his palms against his knees and inhaled raggedly several times until his head began to clear. _He knew. He fucking_ knew _and he didn't tell me._

There was no way he could go back into class. He couldn't face Decker, and he certainly couldn't face Stiles. He didn't want to go back home, either, because the entire apartment was just a series of Stiles-centric memories. Without a conscious thought of where he was going to go, he made his way out of the building and into the blindingly bright sunlight.

It wasn't long before he found himself at Bean Scene, biting the inside of his cheek when he saw Lydia behind the counter. He liked the redhead, but the last thing he wanted was to have to talk to one of Stiles' best friends right now. Keeping his chin dipped to his chest, he handed over his debit card and mumbled his request for a simple Café Americano.

Lydia scoffed and handed his card back to him. "Your money isn't any good here, Derek," she reminded him, shoving a cup at her barista. It had been five months and she was still just as abrasive with her coworkers as she'd ever been. "Now tell me why you look like your world just came to an end," she demanded.

He lifted his eyes and stared at her brokenly. "He's my soulmate," he choked out, and she softened, unsurprised. So she knew too, apparently.

When the barista handed over his coffee, Lydia tugged off her apron and walked out from behind the counter. "I'm going on break," she told him, and when he protested, her eyes hardened while her smile sweetened. "I'm. Going. On. Break," she repeated, and kept walking.

Despite the multitude of emotions tumbling around in his head like clothes in a dryer, Derek couldn't help but feel his lips curve in amusement. Lydia was still terrifying sometimes, but in a way that he'd grown fond of. She gestured for him to join her on the couch that he and Stiles took over every time they came in, settling down onto it and pulling her skirt primly over the edge of her knees. She clasped her hands in her lap and tipped her head, watching him with a look that seemed to encourage him to start talking.

He did. "He knew, Lydia," he whispered. "He knew I'm his soulmate and he kept it from me."

She snorted delicately. "Of course he did, you idiot," she responded, and he blinked in shock. "You freaked out when he kissed you and told him you didn't want him."

Derek's eyebrows drew together in pain as the memory of that night rushed back. "I couldn't deal with him continuing to torture me. Every time he does something like that it feels like he's running me through with a damn sword."

Lydia rolled her eyes. "You know how impulsive he is. If you'd given him half a chance to explain, this all could have been resolved three weeks ago and you would have had the happiest New Year's of your life."

He flinched; his New Year's had been miserable. He'd gone to a house party with Cora and Laura just to get away from his own house, and he'd spent nearly the entire time upstairs in the parents' room with the TV on Property Brothers even though he hadn't watched it at all. Instead, he'd spent the time wishing Stiles was there and that he could kiss him when the ball dropped at midnight. He'd resisted the impulse to call and invite him over, though when the clock ticked over to 12:00 am, he'd gotten a text from Stiles that simply said, "Happy New Year's, Der." He hadn't responded.

"You're telling me that was the night he found out," Derek realized, voice hollow and throat aching, and Lydia nodded.

"He called me when he got home. Quite honestly, I don't know how he made it because he was having a panic attack when I answered and he told me he was still sitting in the front yard. It took five solid minutes to talk him down to the point where he could breathe steadily."

The image of Stiles having a panic attack-something he'd witnessed only once in their friendship and something he prayed he would never have to see again-tore at him. Especially because it had been over _him_. "It was that bad?" he asked quietly, and she shrugged.

"He's had worse," she admitted. "Although for a few minutes there I thought I was going to need to call 911. He couldn't breathe, he was freaking out and all he could say, over and over again, was that he'd ruined everything," and every word out of her mouth felt like thorns ripping at his skin.

"I don't understand how he could have done this," Derek muttered, and Lydia's eyes flashed.

"You think he did this on fucking _purpose_?" she snapped.

Derek flinched away. "Of course not," he replied defensively. "But he _knew_ and he didn't tell me."

"How could he have?" she retorted, impatience in her tone. "You told him you didn't _want_ him! He thought he'd destroyed any feelings you had for him and any chance you had of being happy together. I told him to try again, but he was convinced if he pushed then you'd never speak to him again."

Grief welled in his throat because he hadn't been wrong. If Stiles had tried to force the issue, Derek would have blown up at him and tried his hardest to cut him out of his life. "How come it only came up now?" he tried again. "It's not like he doesn't know Stiles isn't his real first name. Why didn't he think to mention it months ago?"

Lydia sighed and rolled her eyes so hard Derek wasn't sure how she managed to keep them in her skull. "Derek, you know how small Beacon Hills is. Everyone's known him since we were in kindergarten, and he had this horrid Polish first name that none of us could say at the age of six, so when Scott called him Mistiles instead, it stuck. We were all raised together and we didn't really get new kids. Everyone's always known his first name even though no one ever used it, so he never had to think about clarifying his initials for any potential soulmates. When he came here, he never thought about the fact that back home everyone knew, but here no one does."

She took a breath. "I know it seems impossible that he wouldn't have mentioned at some point that his initials aren't SS, despite evidence to the contrary, but it legitimately never occurred to him. Trust me, he beat himself up about that nonstop. He couldn't believe how stupid he was-his words-and that he'd put you both through utter hell for something so easily fixed. Derek, he's miserable. He loves you so much and he's scared that you've broken each other so badly that you won't be able to come back from it."

"I don't know how to deal with any of this," Derek groaned, and Lydia gaped at him.

"Jesus, Derek, I had no idea you were this stupid," she scoffed, eyes widening in disbelief when he frowned at her. "Are you really not thinking this through at all? Are you not listening to the words we're saying?"

Derek growled in frustration. "What the hell are you talking about, Lydia?"

"How has it not knocked you on your perfect ass yet? The fact that Stiles is your _soulmate_?" When she practically yelled the words in his face it finally hit him, for the first time, what it all meant. Not just the heartache or the feeling of betrayal, the weariness of having to battle everything with Stiles, every minute of every day.

As the awareness bloomed in his eyes, Lydia nodded. "That's right. He's your soulmate, Derek. What does the rest of it matter? You've survived everything that's been thrown your way because you love each other too much to let the other go. Figure your shit out and go find him, you idiot."

Stiles was his soulmate. A brilliant smile spread across his face until he was sure he looked almost diabolical. _Stiles was his soulmate._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, it all goes up from here. Stiles has a couple of anxiety-ridden and guilty moments in the next chapter, but that's the end of the angst and the pain. :)


	13. Heart to Heart, Skin to Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised, and now I'm delivering. *heart eyes* Enjoy!

Stiles' eyes darted to the clock over the mantel for the fifth time in the past three minutes. It was nearing eight at night and he was anxious because Derek had yet to come home. Stiles was afraid he'd rebelled against their soulmate bond entirely by going out and hooking up with someone else. He wouldn't blame the guy, honestly, but all he wanted was an opportunity to apologize. To try to make it right. He didn't know if it was possible, but no one could say he didn't at least stand up and fight for what he wanted.

His gaze flickered back to the TV, where an old episode of Love It or List It was on. Derek always used to tease him for watching HGTV, but then one day he'd looked up from where he was doing homework at the dining room table and started complaining about the house David was showing, declaring that it wasn't at all what the homeowners were looking for, and Stiles had been merciless in his mockery. After that, HGTV was one of their "we never talk about this" guilty pleasures, with Love It or List It being one of their favorites.

Stiles had been "watching" the marathon for the past four hours, ever since he decided to hell with it, he was going to go to Derek's apartment and do everything he could, including begging if he had to, to get Derek to at least listen to him. When he'd arrived and found Derek gone, he'd settled in to wait for him. Four hours later, however, he was ready to crawl out of his skin. His knee was bouncing, his heart thudding, and he had all these words crawling up his throat, ready to spill out. There just wasn't anyone to spill them _to_.

And then the sound of the key inserting into the lock broke into his thoughts, and he felt like he was going to throw up.

When Derek opened his apartment door, Stiles leaped up off the couch and Derek took a step back in surprise. "What the hell are you doing here?" he managed, and Stiles dove in.

"I'm so fucking sorry, Derek. You can't even begin to understand how fucking sorry I am," he pleaded, the words gushing forth. "I never meant to do any of this, I never meant to hurt you. I know this is all my fault and I'm a fucking idiot, I can't even believe it never _once_ occurred to me to be like, 'Hey, you know my first name isn't actually Stiles, right, I mean, who names their kid Stiles?' Except for my parents fucking named me Mstislav, which, seriously? Is there any worse way to tell your kid you want him to get his ass beat than by naming him something completely fucking unpronounceable from the old country when you're in, y'know, yuppie California?"

Derek blinked against his tirade. "Stiles," he began, but Stiles held a hand up, begging with his eyes to be able to finish, and Derek closed his mouth again.

"Derek, I love you more than I've ever known I could love anyone. I _loathe_ the fact that I've hurt you so many times, and you keep coming back and trusting me and I keep fucking it up. I have failed you over and over and you have every right to hate me and want me out of your life forever, but, please. Just give me one more chance? I promise I'll never make you feel weird about it again, I won't ask you to love me back. But we _are_ soulmates, and it will wreck both of us if we can't be in each other's lives somehow." He stopped, taking a deep breath as Derek looked on in-wait, was that amusement? A little bit of fondness seeping through? "Will you forgive me for breaking your heart repeatedly?"

Instead of answering, Derek shrugged off his jacket, tossing it on the dining room table along with his keys and cell phone. "You mind if we move this to the couch?" he asked dryly, and Stiles flushed, realizing Derek was still standing on the rug in the entryway.

"Yeah, yeah." He gestured with a wild wave of his hand toward the living room, following Derek in as he sat down and biting his lip while he tried to figure out where to sit. When Derek patted the couch beside him he breathed a sigh of relief.

They sat quietly for a few moments, Stiles practically vibrating with anxiety while Derek studied the hands splayed out over his thighs contemplatively. "I went to Bean Scene after I left class," he said quietly. "I ran into Lydia there. She explained everything." Stiles blinked, then nodded. It was helpful for him to already know everything, but it made him feel guilty that Derek had had to hear it from someone else. "I was still really angry, even after."

Stiles' face fell, and Derek's expression melted into something soft, searching, and wrecked. "And then she reminded me of the thing that had somehow slipped my mind in all the mental chaos. We're _soulmates_ , and we love each other. I've spent most of the last few hours thinking about what that means. I even called Laura to ask her advice." He grinned. "You should have heard the shriek of happiness she let out when I told her. I'm honestly surprised you didn't hear her all the way from New York."

Derek paused again, swallowing. "The conclusion that I came to is, we'll figure this out. Nothing you've done is unforgivable, and I know you've never meant to hurt me. We just haven't communicated for shit and both of us were being dumbasses. We can move past this. And the thing is, we'll never stop hurting each other because that's what happens when you love someone so deeply. They have power over you and they can hurt you even when they don't mean to, or realize they're doing it. So we'll just keep doing what we were doing. We'll figure it out. We'll just keep figuring it out."

Stiles had stopped breathing about a split-second after Derek dropped the first "L" bomb. "You love me?" he questioned on an explosive exhale, and Derek smiled.

"I do," he breathed, and then Stiles was scrambling into his lap, thighs bracketing Derek's, hands cupping his jaw as he leaned in. Derek tipped his head up, accepting the kiss and then wrapping his fingers around the back of Stiles' neck, pulling him in tighter, and Stiles sighed against his mouth.

"I love you so much. So fucking much," he whispered, nipping at Derek's lips, then tracing the tip of his tongue over the marks, soothing them. His hands slid around to the back of Derek's neck, playing with the hair at the nape before he realized something. Pulling back from Derek's seeking mouth, he frowned. "Your hair is really short."

Derek beamed. "I cut it."

"But you never cut it this short," Stiles objected, mystified.

"I wanted to finally show my soul mark off," Derek admitted shyly, and all at once he remembered. Derek kept it long because he didn't want anyone to see his soul mark. Stiles' fingers brushed lightly over the back of Derek's neck as he reached up to kiss him again. "Want to see it?" he murmured against Stiles' lips, and yes, yes he did.

Stiles squirmed off of Derek's lap so he could twist on the couch, presenting his back, and Stiles' heart lurched. There, right under the buzzed line of Derek's hair, were the initials MS curling in sprawling, inky black. Without thought, his fingers lifted to trace the letters reverently. "You're mine," he choked out, tears welling in his eyes as the reality hit him in a way it had yet to do. His hand clenched over the curve where Derek's neck met his shoulder, squeezing. "You're _mine_."

"We're each other's," Derek corrected him, voice velvet-soft. "For the rest of our lives."

Stiles nearly whimpered at the realization that this was real. This was _forever_. When Derek shifted back to face him, one hand lifting so his thumb could gently caress Stiles' lower lip, he was lost. He turned his face into Derek's hand, nuzzling against him, pressing kisses into his palm. "I'm going to spend every minute of that time making up for the pain I put us both through."

"It's not entirely your fault," Derek conceded, continuing to swipe this thumb reverently over Stiles' lip. "I never thought to ask if Stiles was a nickname. I mean, really, Stiles as a first name?"

Stiles made a face at him. "It's not like my real name is better. As a matter of fact it's worse, much worse, hence why 'Stiles' seemed like a much better choice. Clearly, my parents weren't brainchildren when it came to naming."

Derek leaned in, replacing his thumb with his lips and brushing them over Stiles', then pressing a little more firmly and sliding one arm around Stiles' waist. "It's over," he breathed against Stiles' mouth between kisses. "Everything that happened before just made us stronger. It taught us how to fight for each other. Don't discount it."

"You're going to say something sappy and inspiring about how we can't appreciate joy without having known what it was to suffer, aren't you?" Stiles teased, and Derek glowered at him in a way that told Stiles he'd been right on the money. "I know it's true," Stiles admitted quietly. "It still doesn't make me feel any less guilty. I fucked both of us up so bad, Der."

"Stiles." Derek tugged him in, moving so that Stiles was in his lap and straddling his thighs. "There have been so many times I was angry at you to the point that I thought about walking away, but I never could. I _know_ you, Stiles. I knew you never meant to hurt either one of us, and I knew I loved you too much to let you go over it. We each had our own ways of dealing with what we were going through, and it wasn't easy for either one of us. We're past that now. Can you please forgive yourself so we can be happy?"

Stiles stared at him wonderingly. Derek wasn't normally one for long speeches, and when he did get into one, it was always emotional and impassioned. Stiles loved watching his face as he spoke so fervently. Now was not an exception. "If that's what it takes," he agreed, laying his arms over Derek's shoulders and cupping the back of his neck with one large hand. He dipped his head as Derek read his mind, tilting his own face up to accept the kiss Stiles dropped onto his lips. "Now can we stop talking? There are other things I'd rather we be doing."

Derek grinned up at him, happiness wreathing his face. "Yes. Absolutely."

A beaming smile spread across Stiles' face and he leaned in again, his lips sliding over Derek's tantalizingly until they settled firmly upon him, and Derek opened up under him like a flower in bloom. The taste of his tongue on Stiles' was heady, and he tightened his arms around Derek's neck as they chased each other's lips. Stiles licked into Derek's mouth and then pulled back teasingly, and Derek hauled him back in without losing a beat. Derek broke the kiss to breathe, and Stiles inhaled quickly before chasing his movements and sealing their mouths together once more.

Derek's arms twined around his back and brought him in tighter, their bodies all but melding together. Stiles could feel the press of Derek's erection between his thighs, rubbing up against his own hard length. A broken whine burst from his throat. "Not that I don't like the kissing, but I've been fantasizing about having you inside me for months now," he rasped out. "Can we make that a reality?"

A low groan rumbled in Derek's throat. "God. Yes."

Stiles didn't hesitate. He hauled himself off Derek's lap, eyes greedily taking in the bulge of Derek's jeans where he strained against the denim, before bounding toward the bedroom. Clothes dropped off him at intervals until he was nearly hopping, trying to divest himself of his pants without tripping and braining himself on the wall, and he heard Derek's chuckle behind him. "If you have time to laugh, you're not moving fast enough!" he called out over his shoulder, and didn't regret his words at all when Derek barreled into him from behind, practically tackling them both onto the bed.

"What was that you said about not moving fast enough?" Derek teased, one eyebrow arched in an inquisitive smirk.

Stiles grinned mischievously. "It worked, didn't it?" he remarked. "You moved that glorious ass."

"Speaking of asses." Derek landed one large palm on Stiles' ass. Fire shot through his body from his toes to his hairline, and Derek watched his reaction knowingly. "You like being spanked?" he murmured, and Stiles couldn't answer, having nearly swallowed his tongue at the crack of heat on his bare ass, so he just nodded eagerly. Derek's hand swatted against him once more, and Stiles looked down and back to see the spread of pink across his cheeks.

"My dick is hard enough to break concrete right now," he groaned, and Derek grinned wickedly before his palm connected with the round firmness of Stiles' ass twice more in quick succession. "Jesus, Der, do you want me to come before we even get started?"

Derek soothed his hand over the reddened skin before leaning in to brush his lips against Stiles' spine, the tip of his tongue trailing over the pronounced ridges until he was at Stiles' neck, tasting the slightly salty skin of his nape. "You're going to come more than once tonight, I promise."

"I believe you," Stiles sighed, rolling so he was on his back, Derek hovering over him and gazing down at him fondly. His breath felt trapped in his throat at the tenderness in Derek's expression. "I love you. I want to stay right here, with you, for the rest of my life."

The look that flitted across Derek's face made his chest ache; it was so full of love and wonder and desire that Stiles had a hard time believing he could be so blessed. "You think we'll be able to stay in bed for the rest of our lives?" Derek asked after a pause, the love morphing into amusement as he visibly fought to not laugh.

Stiles hummed in consideration. "I don't know, I think it might be possible." He made grabby hands at Derek, who chuckled and lowered himself so that he and Stiles were pressed chest to chest, hips to hips, thighs to thighs, and Stiles expelled a soft grunt both from the weight of Derek's body, and the weight of his desire. He tried to buck his hips up a little, just to rub his straining cock against Derek's, but Derek had him pinned so thoroughly he could hardly move. "Are you trying to suffocate me before you fuck me?" he asked, breathless. "Because I didn't know you had an asphyxiation kink."

The corners of Derek's eyes crinkled softly. "I don't. I have a 'looking at you and touching you as much as I can' kink."

Stiles squirmed underneath him, and there, there was that friction between their cocks he'd been looking for. "You know you could touch me a lot more than you've been doing, right?"

Derek shifted, scooting down the bed until his lips were a hairsbreadth from Stiles' cock. "Like here? Do you want me to touch you here?" he whispered, and that was enough to close the gap between them, and yes, yes, that was Derek's mouth sliding over the tip of his cock.

"I don't know, maybe I've been too subtle about what I want," he whimpered, and he could feel Derek's shoulders shake in mirth around him.

He lost the ability to form words when Derek all but inhaled him, sucking Stiles' cock straight back into his throat as far as it could go without Derek gagging or choking. The warmth of Derek's fingers closed in a tight fist around the base of his erection had him thrusting up, trying to fuck himself into that vice-like grip, but Derek held him down firmly with the other hand on his hip. "Behave," Derek warned sternly after coming up for air, and Stiles gaped at him. This was a new look on his friend-boyfriend- _soulmate,_ and he was more than happy to oblige him.

"Where was this domineering behavior last time?" Stiles choked out, and Derek smiled at him darkly.

"It was always there, but I wanted you to fuck me into oblivion," he explained, voice throaty, and Stiles nearly came right then. "Now it's my turn."

Stiles had to grab fistfuls of the sheets to anchor himself, to restrain his hips from coming up off the bed the way he wanted to so desperately. He wanted to fuck into Derek's mouth, but he also wanted to let Derek do whatever the hell he wanted to him. Which he was thankful for when Derek pulled off of his cock with an obscenely wet pop, only to lower his mouth back down to Stiles' balls. "You have a thing for my nuts," Stiles observed on a harsh pant, and Derek merely hummed against him. "Fuck!" he shouted, gritting his teeth against the need to buck upward, which would likely cause permanent damage to his boys.

"Are you okay?" Derek asked, pulling away and looking extremely self-satisfied.

"No," Stiles pouted, and the concern that overwhelmed Derek's expression made him feel slightly guilty. "Get up here." Without hesitation, Derek shifted until he was stretched out alongside Stiles, and Stiles smiled in triumph when he flipped over, pushing Derek onto his back and straddling him. "You're so easy."

Instead of answering, Derek crossed his arms behind his head and lay back, causing his torso to stretch and the lines of his muscles to grow taut. "What are you going to do with me now that you have me where you want me?" he asked, the tone of innocence clashing with the dark, hungry gaze he leveled at Stiles.

"This." Stiles dropped to his elbows, wiggling so he could settle in comfortably between Derek's thighs, and spread his cheeks apart. Derek bit off a strangled oath when Stiles' mouth descended between them, his tongue flickering out to trace the rim of Derek's hole. Stiles didn't fail to notice that his cock jumped, clear fluid leaking from the tip, and he was torn between wanting to continue with what he was doing and to stretch up to lick the precome away.

Derek answered the question for him when he reached down to circle his own erection with his fingers, jacking himself loosely and thumbing at the head of his cock, smearing the precome over it. The greed in Stiles' gaze was apparently evident, as Derek's lips twitched and he held out his his hand. Before he could withdraw, Stiles lifted himself up and sucked Derek's thumb into his mouth, licking at the sharp, tangy burst of flavor. Derek groaned hoarsely as Stiles lapped at his thumb, curling his tongue around it and sucking hard until the taste of precome was just a memory.

Slowly, Derek withdrew his thumb from Stiles' mouth, and Stiles took that as permission to resume what he'd been doing. He kept his gaze on Derek's blown-out pupils while he lowered back down to press his tongue into Derek's tight hole, spreading his rim out with each thrust until he was wet and a little loose. Stiles remembered fucking into him with his cock instead of his tongue; the reminder made him ache and he wondered if Derek would be okay with him doing that on a regular basis, or if he preferred to top more often than not.

"Why are you stopping?" Derek rasped above him, and Stiles blinked, not realizing he had.

"I was just wondering if you'd ever let me replay That Night," he confessed, cheeks heating. Funny, having his tongue in Derek's ass felt as natural as breathing, but asking if he'd rather top or bottom was enough to make Stiles shy.

Another spurt of precome dribbled from the head of Derek's cock. "You liked fucking me?" he growled out, and Stiles took that to mean yes, he'd be okay with doing that again. He nodded, biting his lip and hoping not to appear overeager. "You want to know if I'm okay with letting you fuck me again, or was that just a one-time thing?"

Stiles blinked, surprised even though he knew he shouldn't be. Derek simply understood him, and always had. "I want to fuck you, Stiles. I want to fuck you a lot. But that sure as hell doesn't mean I don't want you to fuck me." Stiles' brow furrowed as he tried to follow all the negatives. "I want you to fuck me," Derek clarified, voice breaking. "I loved having you inside me. I want that." His gaze darkened; his voice dropped into a lower register. "But right now, I want to feel you around me, not in me."

It was a very clear command, and Stiles lifted himself off the foot of the bed, twisting until he was straddling Derek's chest. His cock was inches from Derek's mouth, and he eyed it hungrily as Stiles reached over him and into the nightstand for the lube. Derek's eyes fastened sharply on the bottle of lube, which was the only thing Stiles held. "No condom?"

He hesitated for a moment, uncertain if Derek would be okay with it. "We're soulmates. We'll never do this with anyone else again," he began, and Derek lifted a hand, smoothing the tip of his finger over Stiles' lower lip.

"I'm clean," he swore. "I haven't been with anyone since before I met you, and I've been tested since."

Stiles smiled shyly. "Me too."

Derek took the lube from him, squeezing a generous amount onto his fingertips, rubbing them together to warm it. "Closer," he demanded gruffly, and Stiles reached out for the headboard as he shuffled his knees. His cock was right in front of Derek's lips, and he didn't hesitate to draw it back into his mouth as his fingers found Stiles' entrance. Stiles let out a high, keening sound when Derek began working his fingers in, while simultaneously letting the tip of his tongue flirt with the slit in the head of Stiles' cock and collecting the precome that had begun to spill over. Stiles couldn't decide if he wanted to thrust forward into Derek's mouth or fuck himself backward onto Derek's fingers.

Derek didn't let him do either, however. He thrust his fingers into Stiles' ass, working him with first one, then two, until he could add a third. Stiles could feel the precome weeping from his cock the longer Derek fingered him, but Derek happily licked him clean with every new spurt or dribble.

"I need you inside me," Stiles breathed out shakily. He was already on the verge and he wanted to come on Derek's cock, not in his mouth. He could feel that he was already loose, thoroughly fingered open, and he needed to fill that aching emptiness.

Derek's hands on his hips guided him backward, hovering over Derek's erection. "I love you, Stiles," Derek breathed, and Stiles felt his throat close up when he saw the tears shimmering on Derek's lashes. With a slight tug, Derek pulled him down until the head of his cock was pressing against Stiles' hole, and then he was pushing gently inside.

Letting out a long, low groan, Stiles eased himself down a little at a time, taking in one inch, then two, holding himself still, sliding up a little, then back down, until he was fully seated on Derek's cock, his ass flush against Derek's hips. He felt, for the first time in his life, whole. Complete. This was where he was meant to be, and always had been. He tilted his hips, feeling Derek press deeper into him, and he swallowed the butterflies that swarmed in his stomach, concentrating instead on the full, aching pressure in his ass and the insistent need of his erection.

"God," he breathed. "This… I never knew it could be like this."

"We knew right from the start it was supposed to be us," Derek said softly. "We just didn't listen."

Stiles dropped his head, ashamed. " _I_ didn't listen."

"Stiles." The urgency in Derek's voice had him peering up through lowered lashes. "We both made mistakes. I assumed too much, and I didn't ask enough. I didn't push when I knew I should have. You were too scared to let yourself have what you knew you wanted because it wasn't in the way you thought you were supposed to get it. It's okay. We're here now. We have each other. And we'll have decades to laugh about how fucking stupid we both were. Okay?" His voice had gentled and Stiles could feel tears brimming. "I. Love. You. And I forgive you."

The raw emotion in the fathomless depths of the green-golden eyes watching him so closely, so carefully, had the tears spilling over. "Jesus, Derek, I love you so much. I love you for putting up with my shit, and for never giving up on me. I love you for believing in me. I love you for knowing how much I love you and knowing everything I ever did that hurt both of us was because I loved you too much, and it was tearing me apart because I didn't think I was supposed to. I love you for giving me the chance to discover the truth, and accepting me once I had when you had no reason to forgive me, ever. I love you for everything you are, and everything you will be. I love you, Derek. I love you for forever."

Stiles laughed through his tears when Derek surged up to frantically fuse their mouths together, desperate and hot and seeking, and he gasped into Derek's when the motion drove his cock harder into Stiles' body. "Oh God," he moaned. "Can we skip the rest of the emotional, heartfelt declarations and just get to the part where you fuck me until I can't walk?"

"Gladly," Derek groaned, reclining back onto the pillows and lifting Stiles up with a firm grip on his hips. Their gazes locked and Stiles' lips parted in a whimper when Derek pulled him back down while slamming his own hips upward, pounding himself forcefully into Stiles.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Stiles cried, bracing his palms on Derek's chest as he worked his hips, taking each of Derek's thrusts as a shudder of complete and total bliss wracked his body. His cock slapped Derek's stomach with every bounce, the precome still flowing and smearing on his taut skin. "Jesus, Derek, I'm not going to last!"

"Don't want you to," Derek grunted, continuing to drive up into Stiles' ass with single-minded determination. "I want you to come all over me so we can rest up, because next time, I'm going to take you slowly and thoroughly, until you come apart at the seams and you're too sated to move."

Stiles believed he'd do exactly that. He leaned back, changing the angle so that Derek's cock hit squarely into his prostate, and stars burst over his eyes, blinding him momentarily. "Fuck, Derek, I'm going to come," he gritted out, and Derek's fingers circled his achingly red erection, tugging upward and twisting unrelentingly. Stiles came with a sharp, sobbing cry, his release jetting all across Derek's stomach and abs.

Derek growled as he held tighter to Stiles' hips, fingers digging in so hard there were sure to be bruises left behind for the next several days. "God, Stiles," he panted, and Stiles watched in awe as his face twisted in a grimace of pleasure. "I'm, fuck, I'm gonna-!" Before he could even finish his sentence he was arching up, back bowing off the bed as he burst, coming in waves and filling Stiles with his come.

Stiles collapsed onto Derek's chest, both of them panting for breath as they came down from their orgasm highs. Derek's arms came up around Stiles, holding him close, and Stiles' face nuzzled into the curve of Derek's neck. "You sure there's going to be a round two?" Stiles mumbled, his words muffled by the sweat-slicked skin under his lips, and a laugh rumbled up out of Derek's chest. The vibrations thrummed through Stiles and he sighed, reveling in the feeling of completeness overtaking him.

"We're young," Derek promised, pressing fleeting kisses to Stiles' shoulder and ear and the top of his head, despite his hair being sweaty. "We'll recover. And then I'll take you apart, inch by inch, with slow breaths and deep kisses."

"Can I take a nap first?" Stiles asked, already feeling his eyelids droop. It had been a long, emotionally and physically taxing day. He needed a respite before diving back in.

The fingers on his back stroked over his spine lazily, tracing the lithe muscles curving off of it. "Are you going to be here when I wake up?" he asked, though his voice was teasing, carefree.

"Always," Stiles sighed, and he closed his eyes, and slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is more of an epilogue than an actual chapter. If I hadn't already promised 14 chapters, this might have been the end, but since it's been planned at 14 since I started posting, I decided to make the last one a wrap-up chapter.


	14. We Can See Forever From Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the epilogue to a story that has brought out a lot of love, a lot of hate, and a lot of my time and energy. I got behind on responding to reviews but I'm still going to reply to every one, because (almost) all of you have been amazing and I appreciate each and every single one of you so, so much. I really hope you enjoyed this story and be on the look out for more from me, because my Sterek adventures are far from over. :)

It didn't take long for them to settle into a routine, because it wasn't much different than the one they'd had before. Stiles still showed up to Derek's apartment every night and they did homework together, watched HGTV, bickered and fussed and ate pizza and debated Marvel vs DC. They spent more time talking about what they wanted to do after graduation, and Derek recognized that Stiles was subtly encouraging him to stand up to his parents about his future. He loved him all the more for recognizing how conflicted he was about the whole situation and instead of approaching things from his usual position of "run over it like a damn steamroller", he was letting Derek know his opinion on the matter without forcing it on him. Derek kind of didn't mind the idea as much as he had a few months earlier, though, and he wondered if maybe he was settling into a higher comfort level with it. Knowing that Stiles would be by his side somehow made it easier.

The thing that _was_ different was the sex. There was so much sex. Derek hadn't even known it could be so good, and so often. There were blow jobs in the shower, hand jobs in the car on the way to wherever, quickies in the morning before class, and long, slow, I'm-going-to-rip-you-apart-at-the-seams marathons at night. Derek loved to bend Stiles over the dining room table or fuck into him from behind while they spooned on the couch while watching Avengers. Stiles interrupted his study sessions constantly by throwing one leg over Derek's lap and straddling him, rocking his hips forward, or rolling onto Derek's back as soon as he woke up in the morning, nudging his erection between Derek's thighs.

There were lazy Saturday mornings when Derek would ride him for a solid ten or fifteen minutes, rocking back and forth slowly like a cantering horse before he finally picked up the pace, rolling his hips frantically until Stiles exploded inside him. There were nights when Derek would greet Stiles at the door by pushing it shut behind him, stripping him, and fucking him into the door. Stiles would wrap his legs around Derek's ass and hold on for dear life as Derek pumped into him, ass clenching with every thrust, and Stiles would let out these long, deliciously filthy moans, a litany of profanity spilling from his lips until his cock was spilling all over their stomachs.

It was everything he never knew he could want about having a soulmate. They were best friends, they had that "couple who's been together for a decade" vibe down pat, but they also had the insatiable need to have their hands and mouths all over each other at all times like a new couple. Stiles couldn't stop kissing the back of his neck or trailing those long, spidery fingers over his nape every time he walked by, and Derek would grab at his hand and pull it down against his chest, covering it with his own palm. And usually one of them would feel compelled to drop to their knees and scramble to get the other's pants down. They both liked giving blow jobs, a lot.

The months sped by, full of kisses and classes and sex and studying, long conversations into the night and passing out curled up together in front of the TV, and Derek could almost forget that graduation was looming. He still hadn't decided what he wanted to do. Part of him felt like he should listen to Stiles' suggestions and talk to his parents, but the other part of him maybe, sort of, almost actually _wanted_ to follow in his mother's footsteps.

He hadn't had the sort of connection with Beacon Hills that his parents always had, and he partially blamed that on being sent away to live in Sacramento at such a young age. Being exposed to Stiles' love of the town, however, had him rethinking his mentality. It was his family's home and he wanted to protect it, for future generations of Stilinski-Hales. (Stiles liked having his name first, and Derek thought it was important to end with a reminder that their kids would be Hales. He thought it would be good for the townspeople, give them more confidence in the unity of the family.) And the fact that he thought that showed that maybe it was the right move for him after all.

The vision he'd had all those months ago, with him and Stiles on the couch and reading over their respective notes and files, was likely to be a reality now, and he wanted it. He listened to the way Stiles talked about Beacon Hills and his plans for the Sheriff's Office, and his enthusiasm was contagious. Derek found himself wanting to help Stiles with his ideas to improve their home, and, Stiles being Stiles, he clued into it.

"Graduation is next week," Stiles began one night, and Derek looked up from his notecards to see Stiles sitting somewhat apart from him. He frowned; normally Stiles was draped over him like a cat, and Derek had become so accustomed to it that he rarely noticed it anymore. This, though, the distance, that was new. He didn't like it. "You haven't talked to your parents yet."

Derek sighed. The closer graduation got, the more Stiles pushed him. He wanted Derek to have the opportunity to switch his graduate program if he changed his mind. "I don't think I'm going to," he confessed, and Stiles' face morphed into something unhappy and despondent. The sight of it tore at Derek. "What's wrong?"

"You changed your mind because of me, didn't you?" he mumbled, twisting his hands together. "Because I always planned on going back to Beacon Hills and working in the Sheriff's Office, right? You feel like you have to go back and live up to your family's expectations in order to help me do what I want to do."

Derek pulled his glasses off and set them on the coffee table, shifting on the couch so he was facing Stiles. "I don't feel like I _have_ to do anything," he explained patiently. He cupped Stiles' jaw in his hands, peppering soft kisses over his lips. "More than ever, I feel like this is actually my choice."

Stiles sagged into him, grasping at Derek's shoulders while Derek's arms dropped to wrap around his waist, pulling him closer. Derek pressed a kiss to his temple, breathing his next words against the soft hairs at the edge of his hairline. "Yes, I decided to continue on with it because I want to be with you in Beacon Hills," he admitted. "But it's also because I believe in your vision for our home. I believe that the two of us together can make it a reality. And _that_ is what I want."

"You don't feel pressured or tied down or trapped?" Stiles muttered, his words mumbled into that space where Derek's jaw met his throat.

"No," Derek answered truthfully. "I'm honestly, for the first time in my life, looking forward to seeing what I can do with this legacy."

Stiles pulled back, eyes shining brightly before dipping back in again and pressing kiss after kiss to Derek's amused mouth.

And when Derek's whole family showed up at graduation, Stiles couldn't stop rattling off all the plans he and Derek were making. Okay, so most of the plans were Stiles', but Derek couldn't help but get suckered into his excitement. He didn't remember ever seeing his mother look happier than when she realized Derek actually _wanted_ the life he'd only been passively accepting of for so many years. His father looked proud, and Laura looked relieved. Cora was looking at all the college guys, and Nate, of course, just looked bored and constipated.

Watching Stiles with his family… it did something to him. They'd gone back to Beacon Hills for Spring Break (they were boring as fuck sometimes, but Stiles wasn't interested in wild and crazy so much as he wanted to go back and do the "spend time with the fam" thing _right_ for once), and Derek had spent the whole week watching Laura and Cora try to steal Stiles away from him and the way his parents observed them both fondly, with that occasional smiling glance at each other like, "Our son is so happy, we've succeeded as parents," or maybe even, "I remember when we were like that." It had given Derek a sense of belonging, like Stiles brought them all together. Stiles was the link that made his family complete.

When it was Derek's turn to climb the stage and receive his diploma (not the actual diploma, it was just the little leather book because the actual diploma would be mailed to him in a month), he couldn't see much of anything. The lights were bright and the sun was glaring in his face, but as he turned to look out into the audience, the sound of Stiles' screams and wolf-whistles echoed through the air and he couldn't keep himself from laughing. Lifting one hand, he shaded his eyes and squinted until he could see his soulmate in the crowd, on his feet with his hands cupped around his mouth and screaming his lungs out. Derek beamed, waving at Stiles and his family, and accepted the empty leather booklet before crossing the other side of the stage and resuming his place in the graduate seating area.

Every part of him strained to go back to his soulmate, to screw the rest of the ceremony, but his family had driven a long way for this day. He and Stiles were already leaving after the celebratory dinner for their long-awaited vacation on Catalina Island, and he didn't want his family to feel like they'd driven up for nothing. He sat, he stayed, but the rest of it was a blur. All he could think about was getting out of there.

Even the family dinner his parents took them out to chafed at him. He had _plans_ for this vacation, and he wanted to get started as soon as possible. Fortunately, his family had been in town for two days already and they recognized how impatient he was to have Stiles all to himself, to wash the dust of his senior year off, and they didn't give him any grief over ducking out before the bill was even paid.

Okay, his parents didn't.

"Derek, you two practically live together," Cora complained. "Don't you get enough sex as it is? You really have to rush out of here to go get laid?"

"Cora Lynn Hale!" Talia reprimanded, staring pointedly at Nate. Cora rolled her eyes.

"It's not like we don't all know it's true," she muttered, but fell silent when Laura kicked her under the table.

Stiles grinned, defusing the situation. "You know Derek. I think he's just afraid we're going to miss the last ferry to the island if we don't get out of here soon. The traffic to San Jose is going to be a nightmare if we wait much longer."

Derek cast a grateful look at the man he loved more than life-especially in this moment. "Yeah, exactly." To make a point, he glanced down at his watch. "We should probably say goodbye now, as a matter of fact."

His mother and Laura were standing before he could even pull himself to his feet. "Bye, baby brother," Laura whispered as she hugged him fiercely. "Congratulations. I'm so glad you're finally happy."

He watched over her shoulder as his mother wrapped Stiles up in an equally tight hug, burrowing his face into the top of his older sister's head-because while she may be the oldest, she definitely wasn't the tallest. "Thanks, Laur," he murmured back. "He makes me happier than I ever knew was possible."

"I always knew he would," Laura replied airily, grinning as she pulled back, and Derek opened his mouth before deciding not to remind her that she was the first one to tell him he was an idiot for falling for his Econ tutor.

He was passed from Laura's arms to Cora's, and she gave him a quick squeeze. "You guys are so awesome together," she said, voice hushed, and the look in her eyes tugged at Derek's heart. It was both pleased for her brother's sake, and a combination of wistful and sad that it hadn't happened for her yet.

"Cora, you're eighteen," Derek reminded her gently, tipping her chin up. "It took me until I was twenty-two to find mine. He's out there, okay?"

"Or she," Cora retorted, and he chuckled as he ruffled the top of her hair. She squawked in outrage and ducked out from under his hand.

Derek turned to Nate, who glanced up at him and rolled his eyes. "Everyone's acting like you're leaving the country for a year. You'll be back in Beacon Hills before the end of the summer." He refocused his attention on his phone and Derek fought the urge to snatch it out of his hand and throw it across the damn restaurant. He had to remind himself through clenched teeth that while his younger brother was a total asshole, he was also fifteen and that kind of came with the territory. Derek himself had been no prize in his early teen years, as his Uncle Peter could attest.

Exchanging a "what can you do?" look with his father, Derek pulled the older man in for a brief hug. "You've got a good one there, Derek," Jonathan Hale murmured, watching as Laura and Cora simultaneously wrapped their arms around Stiles from each side. "Don't let him get away."

"Never," Derek swore vehemently, and his father's eyes softened as he nodding, smiling.

Finally, Derek stood in front of his mother. "My baby," she began, and Derek refrained from cringing as her eyes filled with tears. "Your father and I are so proud of you, you know that, right?"

And he did. He also knew it had nothing to do with choosing to follow the career path they'd outlined for him, but for choosing it on his own terms and for his own reasons. "I know, Mom. I love you both." She wrapped him up and held him tightly, longer than he would normally be comfortable with, but this was a special occasion, so he let her without a word of complaint.

Talia snuck a peek at Stiles, who was still chattering with his sisters. "I'm so happy for you, sweetheart. He's a wonderful man, and I'm glad you figured out your issues. Your father and I want nothing but your happiness, and it's clear that it lies with Stiles."

Derek looked over at Stiles, who had pivoted to face him. His hands were stuck in the pockets of his charcoal dress slacks, his stance loose and easy, a bright smile on his face. Derek's heart soared. This was his forever.

"It's time for us to get going," Stiles announced, sidling over and linking his fingers with Derek's. "It was great seeing all of you again."

"You'll be back in August, right?" Jonathan asked, and Derek nodded in confirmation. "Have a lovely vacation, boys."

Stiles beamed and Talia hugged him one more time. "Take care of our son," she said with a light tone that belied the importance of her words.

The look that crossed Stiles' face made the breath catch in Derek's throat. "I will never do anything less," he said, voice raspy, and Cora and Laura cast identical triumphant grins at the two of them.

"We'll see you in August," Derek reminded them as he ushered Stiles out the door, and then he nearly collapsed on the exterior wall of the restaurant. "Thank God. I never thought they were going to let us leave."

"Why Derek Hale, someone would think you're in a hurry," Stiles teased, and Derek grabbed his hand, pulled him in, and captured his mouth with a searing kiss. Stiles held on to his shoulders for dear life while Derek tongued at the seam of his lips, coaxing them open until their tongues were sliding wetly against each other. They stood there for several moments, just kissing, until Derek finally broke it off and inhaled deeply.

"I _am_ in a hurry," he explained, eyes darkening. "The sooner we get to the ferry, the sooner I can get my hands all over you."

"The ferry is a public place," Stiles scolded him.

Derek grinned wickedly. "You really think that's going to stop me?"

Spoiler alert: It didn't.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come say hi to me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cobrilee)! I love making new friends, and it's so hard to have a conversation in comments. :)


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